Burn Brighter
by redcat512
Summary: This is Arthur's story. This is who he is. Swearing, WIP, slow build Arthur/Eames. (Previously titled: Burn It Down)
1. Part 1-1

**Notes:** Like it says above, this thing is _slow build_. Yes, there will be Arthur/Eames, but this fic is also my love song to the whole Inception 'verse, so there's going to be many tangents in here. I want to explore Arthur's whole life, and the lives of the (canonical, don't worry) people close to him.

* * *

The first time Arthur meets him, Eames tries to fist-bump him, makes a crack about Camelot and commits crimes against humanity by wearing a leopard print t-shirt.

Eames is the fourth member of the team, as Cobb and Mal being on their second anniversary trip means that Arthur was going slowly crazy without work and is forced into working with other people. The other two members are Zoe, a forceful and un-compromising extractor, and Andrei, the silent and anti-social architect.

Arthur has worked with both of the others separately before, and likes them well enough. They get on with the job, and leave him to do his. Eames has come with Zoe's recommendation, but Zoe has a terrible taste in men, so Arthur isn't necessarily taking her word as gospel.

After their first unfortunate introduction, Eames proceeds to hit on Zoe, who pretends not to enjoy the attention, Andrei, who threatens to hack every single one of Eames' fake identities if he persists, and Arthur, who ignores everything not directly related to the job.

You don't have to like the people you work with, you only need to be able to trust them to do their jobs, and so Arthur goes under with the team trusting that Eames can get serious when the time calls for it, but also ready to improvise if he doesn't.

When their mark's apparently militarized subconsciousness manages to split up their team and traps an out-manned and out-gunned Arthur and Eames (looking like a voluptuous blonde in a clingy red dress) in a mess of corridors strangely missing any of the escape routes and traps Andrei was supposed to have designed, Arthur resigns himself to shooting themselves out of the dream and trying again another day.

He needn't have bothered fussing about the blemish on his spotless job-completion record, though, because a moment later Eames flickers into a spotless copy of their mark and walks out to talk down the projections.

Arthur has seen fresh, young, cocky forgers try to impersonate the subject of a dream to their own projections, and every single time, it's failed because the subconscious knows its own conscious far better than the conscious knows itself and can spot an impostor a mile away.

There's no way it can work, and yet it does.

Afterwards, when they've rejoined Zoe and Andrei, (who mutters something vague about Somnacin doses in explanation of his messed up floor plan), when they've managed to break into the basement of the building where the safe holding their target information is, after they've woken up and scampered before their mark can awake, Arthur asks Eames about it.

"I'm just that good." Is all Eames will say, and he's back to his infuriatingly smug self enough that Arthur abandons the line of questioning in disgust.

Arthur doesn't generally do celebratory drinks, but he's known Zoe a long time and he's willing to indulge her as she whines to Andrei about his blunder while he ignores her in favour of his beer. Eames tags along, and once he's had a few drinks, he miraculously tones down the douche-bag vibe and Arthur's starting to hear the brilliance hiding behind his careful mask. And yeah, okay, so once Eames is less of a dick, Arthur can actually appreciate that he's not bad-looking, and even kind of hot.

There's a moment when Arthur's let down his guard enough to consider breaking his rules about not mixing work and sex (_it's just this once, I'll probably never see him again_) when Eames laughs at something Zoe's said and forcefully drags her out of her seat to dance. Arthur knows Zoe's married, and she's devoted to her husband, and nothing is going to happen between her and Eames, but the sights still drops a cold lump of jealousy into his stomach and he vigorously shuts down any speculation about Eames before he excuses himself and goes back to his hotel room. His flight leaves at 6 am, anyway, he tells himself.

* * *

**tbc**

Feedback/suggestions/critique welcome and appreciated.


	2. Part 1-2

The second job they work together, Arthur has no warning in advance. He walks into the hotel room Cobb has commandeered as their base of operations and sees Eames leaning back in a chair. The controlled part of Arthur's mind freezes while some other part of him distractedly supplies him with _oh, good that I didn't sleep with him, then _before his brain has time to catch up and block all unprofessional thoughts.

It is good _that_ never happened, though, Arthur will sometimes grudgingly admit to himself when he's not trying to convince himself he's a robot who functions on coffee alone and doesn't do _feelings_ and especially not the kind that happen in his pants. Because Eames is now looking like Zoe _and_ Cobb's choice of forger, and Arthur works more with those two than anyone else, so more of Eames is definitely in Arthur's professional future. And that's alright, really, because for all that Eames can be an insufferable git, he's still got his shit together enough to pull through when it really counts, and the workaholic robot part of Arthur doesn't care about anything else. Even that leopard print shirt. Really.


	3. Part 2

Despite common perceptions to the contrary, Arthur wasn't always close with Dominick Cobb. Actually, he'd met Mal first, and after her rhetorical splash of colour, Dom was a drab grey little cardboard cut-out. Arthur couldn't take him seriously.

* * *

Arthur had started off in the regular army fresh out of high school. He could have gone to college, could have gotten a free ride, but his head hadn't been screwed on right at the time, so he'd enlisted the day after his eighteenth because he didn't care what happened to him but wasn't enough of an asshole to check out on his mother on purpose.

The recruiting officer had stared at Arthur's test scored doubtfully, but lets him apply for the lowest rank available.

A few months after being accepted, Arthur had found the mental baggage he arrived with lightening, a little. After his first tour, he'd barely remembered the hollow 18 y.o. kid who'd dragged his sorry butt to the recruitment office.

By the time he was twenty one, he'd climbed to Corporal and he was content being inside his own head. It might have been the distance from his home-town and childhood, it might have been the people he'd met and learned to respect and trust, it might have been the fact that he finally felt like he was _doing_ something with himself, but whatever it was, it helped.

When he was 22, his CO took him aside and told him he'd been asked to recommend people for a specialised unit working on a classified project. They wanted Arthur.

Arthur had made friends and enemies, and he'd made a place for himself there, but he wasn't so fixed in his ways that he wasn't up for a change.

Three months later, his worldview was turned upside down and he met Mal, the most astonishing woman he'd ever known.

Through her, he met Dom, but it was Mal Arthur had fallen a little bit in love with.

Dom didn't warm up to Arthur straight away, and nor did Arthur to him. Arthur couldn't forgive him for being too boring for Mal, and Dom was perpetually distrustful of Arthur. Mal didn't help the situation by cheekily suggesting a threesome one time after a few drinks. Dom spent the next week not leaving Mal alone in a room with Arthur.

* * *

When the Cobbs decided to leave the government to dig its own grave, Arthur made the second most drastic decision of his life and didn't re-enlist. The three of them entered the private sphere, though after Mal got pregnant, it was just Arthur and Cobb, and fine, alright, Dom had grown on Arthur. A bit. Enough to warrant civility.

The day Mal went into labour, she pulled Arthur aside before a terrified Dom had shown up.

"You must promise me that if anything happens to me – now, or later, or even fifty years from now – you will look after Dominick."

Arthur tried to reassure her that she'd be fine, but she had insisted.

"Promise me. You know how he gets. He forgets to eat when he's caught up in a puzzle. He would forget to sleep, too, only his body reminds him by collapsing."

Arthur gave in and promised.

* * *

By the time Mal was pregnant a second time, Arthur and Cobb were united enough in their panic during her labour to silently agree on a temporary truce that somehow never ended up getting revoked.

When Mal unanimously decided to make Arthur James' godfather, Dom didn't even protest. Vocally, anyway.

In any case, the time Arthur grabbed Phillipa as she was about to step in front of a speeding van made Dom finally forgive Arthur for being his wife's best friend and by the time Mal jumped out of a window, there was no one Dom would have called but Arthur.


	4. Part 3-1

**Notes:** Any views expressed by the characters on any religion or political affiliation are not necessarily mine! It's just that this chapter is set in the US barely 5 years after 9/11, so it might sound a bit politically... charged. At least read to the end of this story arc before you start slinging mud at me.

* * *

A year after Phillipa is born, Mal goes back out into the field. Dom and Arthur try to fight her about it, but she's bored of changing nappies and daytime TV and neither of them is capable of saying no to Mal for extended periods of time, anyway.

Dom does make her compromise by taking a low-risk job. In Arthur's opinion, they don't even _need_ dream-share for this job, but their client insists, so okay, they'll do it the extra illegal way.

Their client hides their identity well, but it's clear to Arthur that its someone with the Democrats. They're looking to support a candidate for an Illinois Supreme Court seat, but they want to research the possibilities _very, very_ carefully after their last pick turned up a racist history from way back.

Cobb's been given two marks to investigate. One is currently in Springfield and the second in Chicago, and since they're in a tight schedule, Dom and Mal take the first, and Arthur and Eames take the second.

Their mark is a woman called Nadia Wilson. She's a half Lebanese, half English equity partner in a major law firm. Their client is keen to get a woman on the bench, but wary of the fact that both her parents are practicing and devout Muslims. Nothing is known about Nadia's own religion, and she generally keeps her non-professional life very quiet, and so far, traditional methods of research haven't found any dirt on her. She was a good student in high school, college and law school, she has no criminal record, never been married, never attended any protests or rallies that weren't required of her by work, has never even gotten a video rental fine but their client is insistent that there has to be _something_ to her, she can't really be as boring as she seems.

* * *

Arthur starts off with the belief that their client's other investigators just didn't know what they were doing and that he can do a better job in two days than they have in a month, but on the third day, when his search has turned up nothing more incriminating than a thrown away phone number from a co-worker, he's about ready to admit that maybe the incompetence of his predecessors is not the thing at fault here. If he was anyone else, he'd throw his arms up and suggest that maybe Nadia _is_ just a very dull person, but there's a niggling feeling in his head that won't let him just dismiss her out of hand. The thing is, Arthur's gotten hold of some of her law school papers – and they're good. _Very_ good. Not that Arthur cares much about law aside from where it might land him in prison, but her legal theory discussions are fascinating and amazing and completely sideways from how he would have tackled the problem, but they _make sense_, at least once you're used to think about it with your brain flipped 90 degrees. Nadia is a ridiculously smart woman, and okay, so she's made partner at a fairly young age, she has a spotless professional record and in her free time she helps out various charities, but Arthur can't bring himself to believe that someone as brilliant as her has nothing in their life, no hobby, no pet, no boyfriend, almost no visits home to the parents and no particularly close friends. And she's not thrown herself into her work, either, because no self-respecting workaholic lawyer takes Saturdays _and_ Sundays off, even if she is in the office til 9pm each weeknight.

Eames follows her on a Friday night and she goes home to bed. He spends the whole night texting Arthur, whining about how bored he is and when there's still no movement from her apartment by noon the next morning, Arthur gets suspicious and orders Eames to practice his breaking and entering skills, only preferably without any actual breaking.

Two minutes later, Eames is on the phone to Arthur.

"She's fucking gone."

"What do you mean, she's gone? She's not in her apartment?"

"Yes, that's what I bloody well mean!"

"Did she slip by you? Did you have eyes on the lobby the whole time?"

"I'm not a fucking amateur, Arthur. I know how stick to my post. She just gave me the fucking slip. And anyway, there's a fire escape behind the building, or she could have disguised herself well enough for me to miss her leaving out the front with one of the larger groups."

Arthur rubs at his temples. "Well there's not much we can do until she comes back, is there? I've got alerts set up on all her bank accounts and credit cards, but there's been nothing so far. And it looks like she's left her phone on, but the GPS signal says she's left it at home, that's why I didn't even realise she'd moved."

Eames swears with some words Arthur's never even heard of and hangs up. Arthur sets in to wait.

* * *

Nadia is back home that evening, though Eames doesn't see her get back. They only realise she is back because Arthur has decided to send Eames in again to bug her living room for sounds and he hears her switch the TV on for the evening news.

She spends a quiet night at home, has an early night, wakes up early the next morning to attend a charity breakfast and spends Sunday afternoon catching up with an old law school friend. Arthur manages to sit near them at their café of choice and hears nothing more exciting than rumours of who's divorced, whose kid dropped out of school and whether new graduates are getting younger every year or not.

Nadia spends her work week as usual, working 12 hour days and making small talk with her colleagues. On Saturday, Eames sticks to her like glue, but she behaves and goes out to brunch with her cousin, followed by attending the ballet by herself in the evening. Arthur's set up cameras on all the conceivable exits to Nadia's building, but sometime between boiling the kettle at 11 pm on Saturday after returning from the ballet, and 8 am on Sunday when Eames knocks on Nadia's door pretending to be a lost courier, she's disappeared again.

Arthur spends the hours going over Nadia's financials with a fine-tooth comb again.

Eames comes back to the hotel room and watches for a while.

"What do you think she's up to? Or what is it the client _thinks_ she's up to?"

Arthur doesn't reply straight away. "I try not to make assumptions without further information."

"Meaning you have no idea." Eames crows.

"Oh, I have some idea." Arthur answers grimly. "At least of what _they_ think."

"And what's that? That she's secretly moonlighting as a stripper?"

Arthur turns in his swivel chair to stare at him. "Well, they might be concerned about that too, but come on, look at her – she comes from a Muslim family but she's a perfectly centre-leftist with no apparently religious affiliation and only tentative political ones. She's an important up-and-comer contemplating running for a seat on the Supreme Court, or hell, she could go into politics if she wanted, what with having done all that charity business with disabled kids; she has no apparent personal life to speak of; she sneaks off once a week to do god knows what, god knows where, with god knows whom.

"She's too neat and tidy to be for real, Eames - something is up, and the Democrats didn't want to say anything more definitive than 'national security interests' but it's plain as day that what they're thinking is terrorists."

Eames blinks slowly him. "They think she's a terrorist?"

"No, they don't _think_ that, but they see her skin, they look at her Arab mother who managed to convert a previously nice English Catholic boy to Islam in six months and they wonder if maybe they should dig a bit deeper than they would normally. They don't _think_she has terrorist ties - hell, they probably don't even think she's secretly a Muslim, but after that guy with the great uncle in the KKK, they're being extra thorough, so they want to _confirm_ she has no terrorist or extremist ties."

Eames rolls his eyes and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _Americans_.

* * *

Nadia is back home in time to watch American Dad, of all things, without Eames or Arthur managing to catch her sneaking back in.

Arthur swears repeatedly and thinks venomous thoughts about Cobb, who's already vetted his and Mal's target and is probably back with their stupidly adorable baby already, making ridiculous lovey faces at each other.

* * *

On the twelfth day since picking up the job, Arthur officially throws in the towel on old-school research and grimly asks Eames if he's got enough on Nadia's co-workers, family and acquaintances to be able to forge some of them.

Eames only grins.

"I thought you'd never ask."


	5. Part 3-2

They pick the next Friday night for the extraction, since Nadia's only got an afternoon meeting with a client on the Saturday, and the Sunday free, so judging by her previous pattern (which goes back a lot further, after Arthur bites down his pride and asks their client for their investigator's notes on Nadia) she'll do her disappearing act on Sunday, but they have Friday night and Saturday morning free to take her down into dreamspace.

* * *

Arthur's really starting to think Eames was a worthwhile investment on Cobb's part (okay, Mal's - she'd forced Dom, cringing, to employ him that first time, because 'he has beautiful eyes!' and Arthur is kind of glad he'd been halfway around the world at the time and unable to protest because yeah, he would have protested, and they would have lost a pretty decent forger) because while Nadia is at work on Friday, Eames sneaks into her home again and replaces her Tylenol with mild sedatives and sets up a tiny camera in her bookshelf. Arthur asks why Eames thinks that a woman who hasn't called in sick in three years and barely even drinks would suddenly start taking painkillers, that particular night, but Eames only grins and answers with: "You'll see."

Arthur has to check his totem (Mal's idea, brilliant woman) to make sure he's not dreaming when the grainy image on the shitty camera shows Nadia dropping her briefcase near the door and heading straight for the bathroom, from which she emerges with something small in her hand, which she proceeds to swallow and chase down with a glass of water.

"How the hell did you know?" he demands of Eames, but Eames, who is leaning over his shoulder and smirking at the screen, only winks and says:

"I am omniscient, Arthur. I know everything."

* * *

Half an hour later, Nadia's asleep or unconscious on the couch while the TV blares, so they give it another ten minutes to be sure before they break in. ("How sure are you that she took the paracetamol and not her multivitamins or birth control, anyway?" "… Pretty sure. Also, she's not on birth control." "Why didn't we put a camera in the bathroom?" "… Because that would be low, darling - even for us.")

Eames swears up and down that whatever he switched out for her tablets won't mess with the Somnacin, so they plug Nadia in and then themselves. Arthur sends a final confirming look at Eames and presses the button on the PASIV.

* * *

They've only hooked up the PASIV for three and a half real world hours, which gives them about three days at the first level, and they probably won't need to go deeper than that. They can always try again next week if they fail this time.

They've decided on modelling the dream on Nadia's office. It's where she does most of her social interaction, and actually, where she's spent most of her waking life in the last ten years. It wouldn't be weird for her to dream being at work, and considering the number of new faces her firm sees each day in the form of clients and witnesses, it won't be strange for Arthur or even Eames as himself to be wandering around.

Eames shifts into an early twenties courier boy who regularly shows up at Nadia's firm and asks her for a signature with a flirty smile. She smiles back politely and drops the package on her desk without any particular care after opening it and finding documents inside. She leaves her mobile phone in her (unlocked) desk when she goes for lunch, and when Eames as her assistant informs her that two weekends in a row are completely booked with charity events, she barely blinks.

Arthur is starting to go crazy after the first day. Nadia's projections are the politest, most civilised he's even met, and even when he starts messing with the levels of the building to try to shake something loose, they don't do anything more disruptive than look confusedly at each other when the eighth floor can be found between the third and seventh and the fifth floor has disappeared entirely.

"Can you be reverse-militarised?" Arthur hisses at Eames as he walks past disguised as Nadia's boss. Eames straightens his tie in the same manner that the real guy does and shrugs.

"What, you mean made so passive she doesn't react to anything we throw at her?"

Arthur shrugs, trying to hide his helplessness. He's never felt this incompetent before. "I dropped the elevator with three projections into a volcano and no one reacted."

Eames' face stretches into a grin. "Why Arthur, I didn't think you had it in you to be so naughty. What next, glittery knickers?"

Arthur doesn't grace him with a response.

"No, but I know what you mean. I changed from her female assistant into a male lawyer in the ladies' and when I walked out male, no one gave me a second look."

"Maybe she just doesn't have anything to hide." Arthur suggests desperately. "Maybe we're so used to dealing with liars and thieves that we just don't know what to do with an honest person."

Eames throws him a sideways look. "Arthur, dear, there's no such thing. Maybe they have only boring secrets like falsely blaming their little brother for eating all the cookies when they were eight, but _everyone_ has _something_ to hide. Besides," he grins, "she's a lawyer."

* * *

By the end of the second day, Eames has managed to convince Arthur that going down a level is the only way to crack this particular mark.

Arthur stays on the first level to hold the dream intact and Eames, as Nadia's assistant, drugs her coffee and then he plugs her and himself into the PASIV Arthur's dreamed up for him in Nadia's own office. Eames does a cheery little wave just before Arthur presses the button.

* * *

It's only been a few minutes on Arthur's level (maybe an hour for Eames and Nadia) when Eames gasps awake.

The first thing he does is look over at where Arthur's sitting with a raised eyebrow, and the second thing he does is burst into incontrollable giggles.

"What?" Arthur frowns. "What happened? Did you find anything?"

Eames doesn't even stop laughing like a loon, he just waves a hand at Arthur and drops his face into his other hand.

"Why are you laughing? Did her projections get violent and drive you that final inch into insanity?"

Eames makes a visible attempt to pull himself together. "Sorry, darling, you just should have been there to understand."

"Well?" Arthur asks impatiently. "Any terrorists? Any strippers?"

Eames chuckles one final time into his fist and wipes at his eyes, which have actually teared up. Next time, Arthur is insisting on working with Mal instead. Even at her most neurotic, she's got to be better than _this_.

"No, no terrorists. No strippers - or at least, not exactly." Another giggle escapes him.

"But you found _something_, right?"

"Oh yeah. I found something alright."

Arthur is this close to shooting Eames in the face for being insufferable. But he might yet need him in this dream, and he can't guarantee that after being shot out of it, Eames will happily plug back in and tell Arthur what he found out. "What. Did. You. Find."

Eames rolls his eyes. "I have to tell the story right, hold your horses. Look, she'll be back with us in a few minutes, we better clear out. I'll show you in a minute. It was much more obvious in the second level, but in retrospect, I should have seen it even here."

He takes the needle out of Nadia's arm and helps Arthur pack away the PASIV. Arthur puts Nadia's reading glasses on her nose where she's sprawled out on the settee in her office and plonks some files onto her lap. She'll wake up and think she fell asleep from boredom. Hopefully. Even if she's suspicious, it's not like her subconsciousness will actually _do_ anything to them. Arthur hopes.

They slip out of her office just as Nadia starts stirring.

"Okay, lets go downstairs to the coffee shop, I'll show you what I'm talking about - it will be easier to see away from projections of her immediate colleagues." Eames grabs Arthur's arm and pulls him to the elevator.

Arthur stops him before he presses the 'ground' button with a warning headshake and presses '1' instead. He's no longer sure whether 'ground' leads to anything that could be construed as three dimensional space. They walk the last flight of stairs.

"Okay," Eames says once they're sitting down and have magically appearing coffee in front of them, "take a look around you. What do you see?"

Arthur turns his head to get a good 360, as if he wasn't already aware exactly of where every potential danger was. "I see a café. I see tables. I see customers. I see wait staff."

Eames groans. "I bet your Literature teachers hated you, didn't they? I bet you stubbornly refused to understand _tone_ and _rhetoric_ and_subtext_. No, Arthur, what do you _see_ about _Nadia_ from what is around you? And don't tell me she must like the colour green or something – don't go so far as to tell me something about _her_ but tell me something about what surrounds us but in the _context_ of her."

Arthur stares at him. Drugs. Drugs would explain the laughing fit, and the poor fashion choices, and just generally Eames as a whole. It is surprising Eames has managed to be such a high functioning addict, but Arthur's seen him dragging around a dog-eared copy of _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ so he supposes maybe this behaviour is some sort of patriotic tribute or something. "The, uh, lighting?"

"Hm, I'm not actually sure if you're pulling that out your arse or you actually think that. You're sort of right, but not really. Look around and compare this to other dreams you've been in. To make it easier, think of a mark who is in some way superficially similar to Nadia – a forty something single working woman, say - and tell me the differences."

Arthur takes another look around and compares this to the mind of a pharmaceutical scientist who had a cat for company and a stream of twenty-something boy-toys for fun. "There are less cat-related trinkets?"

Eames glares disapprovingly. "Now you're just being stupid. No, look, see that customer over there? What can you tell me about him?"

Arthur is kind of getting annoyed with this game. He's obviously not thinking in whatever drug addled way Eames wants him to. "I don't know, he's boring. He's around fifty, ill-fitting suit, forgettable face, probably a businessman Nadia's seen around once or twice but doesn't know well. His features blur over when I'm not looking at him directly."

Eames nods, finally starting to smile. "Good, good. And now, tell me about the young lady sitting just outside with the yappy dog."

Arthur peers out the window sullenly. "Late twenties. Attractive. Annoying dog. Colourful scarf, probably her idea of trying to be memorable."

"Arthur." Eames chastises. "Stop criticising the projections on a personal level. They're probably not even real. But what about that young man over there?"

"I think I saw him talking to Nadia earlier, I think he works in the mail room. Young, not much money but high aspirations, judging by the LSAT booklet in front of him."

"I don't need his life story, Arthur, just tell me what you can about how you think Nadia perceives him for him to appear as he does here. Nothing to do with his career, but how does she see him?"

"Like a little brother or a son. Maybe less close than that." Arthur answers without thinking. "Something maternal and protective, like she thinks he's still just a kid."

"Brilliant, Arthur, you're getting there."

Arthur raises an eyebrow. "She's secretly got a child? Or wants a child?"

"Not exactly, but you're at least in the right book this time, never mind the page."

Arthur gave up understanding what came out of Eames mouth a long time ago, so he goes with the general feel of the phrase rather than the actual words used. "I'm closer than you were with strippers?"

"Yeah, sure. Why not. Now, what about that charming older lady sitting by herself with the paper in the corner?"

Arthur tries to see what Eames obviously wants him to see. "She's attractive. Polished. Smoothed out and generic, but her features are more crisp than the businessman with the suit. I think…" he hesitates, but continues, "I think Nadia has seen the businessman around, but never bothered to remember him thoroughly, but she's never met the newspaper lady, yet she's a type of person Nadia can imagine well."

"Arthur, whoever said you had a permanently attached stick up the bum was tragically wrong about you. There might actually be a tiny drop of artistry in you. Goodness, I'll have you writing sonnets soon!"

"_You_ said that, actually, about the stick." Arthur deadpans.

"Never mind that. So far we've had two men Nadia knows a little, the woman with the dog whom Nadia has probably seen around and the newspaper woman who's probably a stranger. Let's try that man over there, with the laptop. I'm betting he's a stranger."

Arthur looks over and realises he hadn't even noticed the man in the corner. Well, he _had_, he'd counted him in his automatic appraisal of the room, but he hadn't really _looked_ at him because the man is practically wallpaper, he's so un-noticeable.

"He looks gray." Arthur blurts out. He isn't gray, not really. He's wearing a green cardigan and ratty blue jeans that probably cost 500 dollars to look that ratty, but he's barely _there_. "I wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line-up if he served me coffee every day for a decade. There's nothing memorable about him at all, even his hipster glasses are generic and forgettable."

"How old is this drab cardboard cut-out?"

"Probably late twenties or early thirties."

"A bit younger than Nadia, yes." Eames nods. "And how old is the delightfully detailed lady with the paper? Late thirties? Forty? A few years older than Nadia, but they're both sort of in her age bracket.

"Tell me, Arthur," Eames continues, "when you go out into the world – okay, well not _you_: you're a robot - but when a charming young gentleman like you _might_ have been - if you weren't secretly from Vulcan - goes to a coffee shop, who do you look at? Who do you think about being in coffee shops when you're not in one currently? What sort of person might you fantasise about bumping into and striking up an engaging conversation with?"

Arthur stares at him. Surely it's not that easy. There is no way it is that easy to tell those sorts of things about a person from their projections. Arthur would have noticed years ago if that were true.

"Well? What sort of person would you imagine?"

Arthur opens his mouth. "Lovers. You would imagine lovers."

Eames grins. "I can't believe I made you say such a dirty word. But yes, our darling would-be Justice is a flipping lesbian. That's her dirty secret. She's not sneaking out to communicate with enemies of the state on the weekends – she's just visiting her secret girlfriend who her parents would not approve of. Who, by the way, lives three doors down from Nadia's flat, which is how they met, and it's also why we never caught her leaving the building – because she was in the building the entire time. I've got to say, I'm glad, I was starting to question my skills as a professional stalker."

"But," Arthur says, unsure what to make of this development, "she's not a terrorist?"

He's pretty sure Eames is laughing at him on the inside. "No, Arthur, the only person whose world she's going to set on fire is that of the lass in number 27."

"…That was an awful joke and I hope you get ripped apart by projections for that."

* * *

It's a day later, up in the real world and Arthur's about to report by phone to Dom about the job.

They've decided to keep the gay thing to themselves – all the client needs to know is that Nadia's not a security threat, and they might be the lefties, but Arthur doesn't trust them not to take the path of least resistance by picking the other guy just because he's married with two kids and looks like a neater shoe-in for all the family-type voters. They might still pick Cobb's mark, but Arthur's kind of grown fond of Nadia after two weeks looking through her metaphorical trash, and he's not going to sabotage her if the client doesn't explicitly ask them about it.

Afterwards, before Eames takes off to wherever he goes when he's not making Arthur's life difficult, they sit in a bar in downtown Chicago (far, far away from Nadia's firm – just in case) and try to drown all the job-related mental baggage of affidavits and caveats and other legal terms with scotch. Arthur doesn't even like scotch, but he'll take anything at this point. Plus, he'd enjoyed the wounded look on Eames' face when he'd said that _beer is for people not classy enough to handle scotch_.

"You know, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time and effort if you'd let me put the camera in her flat from the start rather than carrying on like a wanker about 'not cheating'." Eames says. "Don't try to tell me it's an ethics thing, either, we steal from people's brains for a living."

"Maybe. Maybe she would have found the camera and then we would have been in deep shit. In any case, how did you really find out? Was it really just the projections? If you could tell that about people from just the first or second level of dreamscape, wouldn't more people abuse that?"

Eames shrugs. "Nah, I don't think you can tell with most people, at least, not just by projections. Well, depends on the person. I've known people whose projections made their personal details obvious, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Most of the ones I can think of either were still in denial about something or had been for a long time. That makes the subconsciousness act out a little, gotta let it out somehow."

"But Nadia's not in denial."

"No, but I'm sure her parents are. And I suspect that keeping it so very secret has had an effect on her. Everyone at her work believed - both through her words and behaviour – that she was completely single, and yet she's been seeing number 27 for at least three years."

Arthur ponders for a moment. He supposes he's relieved that Eames just got lucky, and that it's not _actually_ so easy to see everything about a person by who they populate a dream with. He wonders what his projections might say about him, if they were as (relatively) easy to read as Nadia's.

"But you know, Arthur, if you ever want me to do a psych eval on you, you are just repressed enough for it to maybe work." Eames grins. "Don't worry, if I ever found anything disturbing about tie fetishes, I would keep it to myself. I wouldn't even tease you about it. Well, okay, I would. Wait, where are you going? I wasn't done offering my services!" Eames hollers after him as Arthur walks away, trying to hid a smirk. He walks quickly, before Eames has time to realise he's been left with the bill.

That will show him how much of a robot Arthur actually is.

* * *

**Notes:** Oh, if anyone cares, Eames knew Nadia would take the Tylenol because they'd been watching her all day and he's good at reading people, and could tell she'd been developing a nasty headache for a while. But, you know, he can't have Arthur knowing that - he'd rather be seen as having pre-cognitive powers.


	6. Part 4-1

**Notes:** Just realised that maybe I'm a giant accidental fan of the Socratic Method. Deal with it.

* * *

All the emotional and psychological progress Arthur had made in the regular army is wiped out after a few weeks working in the new dreamshare unit.

They're training them to be better soldiers: fearless and remorseless killers. It works beyond anyone's wildest dreams. It works so well that Corporal William puts a bullet in his brain after a few months, convinced he's still under.

He's written off as a freak event, but two weeks later, Private Satori goes nuts and shoots three others and kills a fourth before someone think to take her down.

The dreamshare project is suspended until the higher-ups can get experts in to sort this shitstorm out.

* * *

From the second Arthur had met her, even aside from her civilian gear and the messy bun she's pulled her hair up in, he could tell she's not military. Arthur's CO, Harris, only introduces her as Doctor Miles, and she smiles and doesn't correct him even though Arthur can clearly see her visitor's badge made out to a Dr Mallorie Cobb.

She tags along to watch on one of their group exercises, the suspension of which has been lifted.

Arthur doesn't see her once in the dream, and puts her out of his mind while he kills enemy after enemy and then shoots Private Walker out of the dream after he's had both his legs blown off by an IED. It's part practicality – Walker isn't any use to him crippled, and part empathy - Walker's in a lot of pain, but he hasn't gotten comfortable with the idea of suicide as a way to escape the dream, especially not after Williams.

After they're back top-side, Harris dismisses the rest of the quad except Arthur, and tells him to cooperate with Doctor Miles (_call me Mallorie)_. Harris makes noises along the lines of _if there's anything you need_ but makes himself scarce pretty quickly.

Arthur knows he's been singled out because he's the best at this dreaming thing, the quickest to learn, the most creative at ways to kill the enemy (that time Walker turned white after Arthur used a 'dead' squad-mate's leg bone to stab an enemy soldier when they were out of bullets, out manned and surrounded) in his new squad. Harris is getting a bit twitchy around Arthur. Arthur doesn't want to be the next Williams or Satori, and he doesn't think he will be, but he supposes Harris has a right to be cautious.

He's been going down to dreamspace for almost half a year by now, he's used to everything. Except, he's used to the desert, forests, jungle, tundra, under-water, caves, sometimes even cities. Except, the natural locations are all drab and grey, the cities cold, nameless, concrete slabs. It doesn't matter where they're protecting so much as _what _they're protecting (_freedom_), the higher ups would tell him if he asked, so he does his job and only observes his environment where it's relevant to the job. It's boring, it's dull – Arthur doesn't care.

But boring is as far from Mallorie Cobb as Mexico City is from the Andromeda galaxy. Boring is not where Mal takes him.

* * *

They're in the hugest library Arthur has ever seen. The sun is low in the sky, and throws vivid orange sunset streaks through the tall west-facing windows. Where the sun doesn't touch is dark with inky shadows in contrast. The artistry in the room is amazing. There are winding steps leading to the tallest shelves, there are elaborate carvings in the staircase balusters, the curtains hanging to the side of the windows are of a rich, deep sea-green material.

He can tell he's in a dream right away.

At the start of the dreamshare project, there had been times when he'd gone along with the dream to begin with, but with time he's gotten better at constantly mentally re-running how and when he'd gotten there. This dream, though, he doesn't need to remember how he got here, it's too fantastical to be real.

Mallorie is standing near him, smiling in an old-fashioned sapphire coloured evening gown. She's so much more… _her_ than she was in real life that Arthur takes a moment to pity that she's not always this intensely _present_ in her skin. He looks down at himself and he's wearing a black tuxedo, and it kind of looks like the one he'd worn to his high school prom. It's a little ill-fitted and the shirt is stained on the right cuff where Jenny had spilled her not-even remotely virgin punch.

"What do you think?" she raises gloved hands to wave at the library.

Arthur steps over to inspect some of the books on a shelf near him. There are some books he's heard of or read, some that he hasn't. _A Tale of Two Cities, 500 Chili Recipes, Karlsson on the Roof, The Biography of Marie Curie, Dubrovskiy_. Arthur doesn't touch any of them, but wanders down one shelf just looking.

"These books aren't sorted by any library system I've ever heard of." He finally comes up with, stumped as to what Mallorie is asking of him.

She burst into laughter, and like everything else about her, it is lively, passionate and elegant. "My goodness, you're not just a pretty face, are you?"

Arthur stares at her uncomprehendingly.

"Most people would have said something different, more surface-related about this dream. You jumped straight to solving the puzzle. There isn't one, by the way, unless the puzzle is _me_. Tell me, Arthur, does your brain ever stop whirring?"

He hasn't said she could refer to him by his first name, but she's a civilian, and anyway, she doesn't mean anything presumptuous or superior by it so he doesn't mind.

"When I sleep, I suppose." He says, still not sure where this is going or what he's doing here.

She raises a delicate eyebrow. "Really? You don't spend your nights scheming away in that brain of yours? They have shown me your aptitude test scores, and your personnel file. You are a very smart young man. What are you doing _here_?"

"I'm involved in a top secret, highly exclusive military project. You don't think that's enough?" he asks, bewildered.

"Maybe. Maybe it is enough for some people. And maybe depending what they do with your situation. But you spend your days killing – shall we say shadows - in nothing more than a video game. How is what you do any different to what my nephew does on his X-Box machine?"

Arthur blinks slowly. "We're helping develop a new kind of training program. We're learning to make soldiers better, faster, more efficient."

"More efficient at what? Dying?"

Arthur is completely bewildered. "Are you… are you trying to convince me to go AWOL? Or to swap sides or something?"

She laughs. She _laughs_. "Oh no, I just want to know what you are doing here. To what end are you doing all these things? Not for the United States, but for _you, _Arthur. Why is Arthur here? Why isn't he in college or working as an accountant or lawyer or doctor?"

"My mother wanted me to work in a bank." He admits.

"Why didn't you?"

"Because. I didn't want to." He doesn't have any more words than that. Not words he's comfortable speaking to or even thinking near a woman he met a few hours ago. "Look, does Harris think I'm a spy or something?"

His question startles her. "Oh, no, nothing like that. I'm actually here to teach you to see the differences between real life and dreams."

"Okay," he says, still confused and frustrated, "so teach me. How do I see the difference between real life and dreams?"

She looks disappointed. "Fine. Observe."

Suddenly the landscape falls out from under their feet, and instead of a library, they're in a rocky desert that looks a lot like the location they'd ust completed their dream-training for Mallorie's observation.

"Compare." Mallorie orders, imperiously waving a hand at their surroundings. "How is this different to my library?"

Arthur looks around. "Well, it's not a library."

Mallorie waves an impatient hand. "Thank you, I never would have guessed. Something else."

"Well, it's outdoors." He continues dubiously. "But there's no wind, the weather is room temperature, there are no out-doorsy smells. Everything is a bit… grey. Dull. Flat."

"And how was the library, in comparison?"

"Rich, deep." He pauses, embarrassed to say this to a near-stranger. "It had personal touches. It felt like a piece of art, like you'd put a bit of yourself into it."

"Would you say either was more likely to lure you into thinking it was reality?"

He thinks about it. "No. If I was perfectly sane and together, I could always tell immediately that they were dreams. The library was like a Van Gogh, and this desert is like a building blue-print – you wouldn't mistake either of them for a photo. One has too many details and emphases and personal touches, and the other not enough."

"So, if you wanted to build a dream – have you built a dream yet? Remind me to show you – and you wanted to fool the dreamer into thinking it was reality, how would you do it?"

Arthur looks around again. "Well, I would add some weather, for one thing. Make things stir in the wind, that sort of thing. I would add a bit of colour – no, not colour -" he pauses to look. The rocks are a different shade of brown to the earth, the sky is technically blue. There are a few wan-looking clouds, but they're not moving. "- beauty, I think, is what I mean. I would add little details, like a flower growing in the shade cast by some rocks or make some of the clouds more distinct, maybe a heat mirage in the distance if it was a hot day."

Mallorie is smiling. "Like this?" She asks and the world twist around them until they're standing just outside the base Arthur's living on right now. The colour of the trucks are a bit off from reality, and some of the signs are missing because Arthur suspects Mallorie can't remember exactly what they say, but the trees are fluttering in the light breeze, the wind is snatching away what one projection is saying to another, the flag flapping up above them makes a clanging noise every time the metal parts of the pulley system hit the pole. He can smell exhaust fumes from the truck idling near them, and the faint tinny, sound of music is coming out of its cabin.

Harris, Arthur's CO – or at least, a projection of him, runs past yelling at another projection, and his feet throw up dust and leave scruffy footprints in the dirt.

Arthur bends down to feel the ground, and it's warm from the sun. There's a dandelion growing on his left that has somehow avoided being stamped out by regular passage of humans and vehicles.

"Tell me, Arthur," Mallorie startles him out of his observations, "if I left you here for long enough, and if the details I'm not familiar with were a little better, could you believe it was real?"

This is the first time that Arthur understands the dangerous tool a dream architect wields.

Arthur thinks of Williams and is afraid. "Yes. I think I could."

* * *

**tbc**


	7. Part 4-2

Mallorie (_Mal is fine, darling, Mallorie is what __**maman**__ calls me when she's cross_) teaches him about totems, she teaches him about the dangers of dreamshare. She teaches the rest of his squad, but Arthur picks up everything faster, and after a week, all the new tricks she's teaching are trickling down from Mal, to Arthur, to the squad.

Now that the problem of telling reality from dreams has been somewhat solved, the training exercises are back in full swing. Arthur's not sure he's glad. He loves learning, and he enjoys keeping busy, but the constant death, death, death is taking its toll. There are moments when he takes a step sideways form himself and observes his own actions, and it makes him sick. He always said he'd never be that person, but here he is – not saving people, not protecting them, only hurting and killing.

The rest of his squad are good people, but they have their own shit to deal with, and anyway, people don't talk about their _feelings_ in the army, it's just not done. Mal's presence helps, in that regard. She's a civilian, and French to boot, so she has no hang ups about what is appropriate conversation. She drags things out of Arthur against his will, but it's easier once it's out. He kind of suspects that nothing he could say would surprise her, anyway.

* * *

Sometimes, when it's just the two of them, Mal teaches him how to build. He's never going to be as natural or intuitive an architect as her, but he has an eye for detail, she tells him, and his memory is very visual so he's near photographic in his re-creation. It doesn't matter than he doesn't have the same artistic flair as Mal, because he's never going to need to re-build her beautiful library (**_Beauty and the Beast_**_, Arthur, surely you watched __**films**__ as a child?_).

Mal's husband is nothing like what Arthur expected. The way Mal talked about him, Arthur had expected a tall, charismatic, imposing Fabio-type. When Mal introduces them, Arthur feels cheated, somehow. Domnick Cobb is the most boring civilian Arthur has ever met.

He's frumpy and fussy and he likes to frown disapprovingly at many of the things Mal says and does. He refuses to use a computer and projector to draw diagrams when he explains things in reality, and uses a white board instead. Arthur has the feeling that Cobb would use a blackboard and chalk if they were available. He cuts his food into perfectly sized pieces before he eats, and corrects Mal when she says things that don't exactly make the same sense they would in French. Cobb doesn't speak French, and shows no indication of wanting to learn. Arthur took French at school, so sometimes he speaks it to Mal just to hear her laugh and correct his pronunciation while Cobb frowns.

Frankly, Arthur can't see whatever it is that Mal does in Cobb and he is disgusted by her infatuation. In another life, if she hadn't already been with Cobb, Arthur thinks he would married her himself.

* * *

Every new dream that Mal builds is more beautiful than the last, though the library from the first time always sticks out in Arthur's memory. She never takes him back there again. When he asks, she jokes that now he knows enough about dreaming to read her like a book – pun intended.

In secret from the others, she tells him about extraction, how the dreamer's subconsciousness affects the dream, and how a person with the right know-how is able to uncover all their secrets in dreamscape.

Arthur wonders whether his superiors know about this use of dreamshare, about how useful it would be instead of traditional interrogations and intelligence-gathering.

Mal doesn't answer when he asks, but he knows her well enough to read the unhappy _yes_ in the set of her shoulders.

* * *

"You know," Mal drawls one day in the cafeteria over lunch, "your contract is almost up."

Arthur glances sideways at her. "Are you trying to lure me into academics? You know I'm more of a do-er than a sit-and-thinker. In any case, if I left now, I'd still be on reserve and subject to recall for the next four years."

"Well," she shrugs, "there are always ways around that sort of thing. Especially for a smart young man like you. And I'm more than just a frumpy old professor, you know." She adds, insulted.

Arthur grins. "You'd never be frumpy. You could wear Dom's clothes and you'd still pull them off fabulously."

She swats at him with a folder she's half-heartedly reading. "You are terrible to him. I don't understand why my two favourite boys loathe each other so."

"Well, he hates me because he knows I could steal you away in a heartbeat." He jokes. "I hate him because he's boring and a stick-in-the-mud."

Mal rolls her eyes. "You're both idiots; that's why. Seeing your own idiocy reflected in the other just makes you defensive."

"But you love us anyway."

She snorts but doesn't contradict him.

* * *

The training exercises turn less immediately kill-or-be-killed, and one day their orders are to find the location of an enemy camp from a prisoner.

Arthur watches his squad mates torture the – projection? God knows, he fucking hopes that's not a real person – until it dies of blood loss without giving up the information. They fail the exercise but Arthur doesn't even care.

Topside, he holds it together long enough to make it to the latrine before he vomits.

He's rinsed his mouth and is about to leave when the door opens to admit Dom. Arthur has time to think _oh god, anyone but you_, but Dom only pulls out a box of tic tacs (only a civilian) and wordlessly hands it over.

* * *

Mal doesn't say anything about it at lunch. He doesn't know whether it's because she's being polite or because Dom didn't immediately run to tell her. He hopes it's the former, because the latter might mean that Dom is actually a decent human being, sometimes.

* * *

"You know, you should make yourself a place, a mental place." Mal says to him one day. "You can put pieces of yourself into it, and be able to see yourself in them."

"Isn't that risky? What if someone tries to extract from me? Won't I have put all my eggs into one basket?"

Mal shrugs. "By consciously putting them in one place, my subconscious is less likely to hide them away in a safe or a bank that an extractor might build for me. And my secret place becomes a totem, of sorts. No one else could build it to the same detail. In any case, only two people have seen mine, and only parts of it anyway, and I trust you and Dom not to sell me out on purpose."

He blinks. "The library? It's your secret hidey hole and you showed _me_? On the first day you met me? Why the hell would you trust someone you'd just met?"

Mal laughs. "Arthur, I knew I would marry Dom the first time I met him. It took him a little longer to work out the same, but it's not his fault you men are just slower at these things. Anyway, the library you saw is just one room. You haven't seen the rest, so you couldn't recreate it to fool me."

"You're going to get yourself into trouble with this leap-without-looking-thing one day." Arthur warns, shaking his head. "You can't' just trust people based on first impressions."

* * *

Arthur does listen to Mal and make a mental home base, though. It's nothing as exciting as her library (and whatever is attached to it), but it serves his purposes well enough. It's the shed from the house his family lived in when he was 10 – he and his sisters spent hours playing in there, hiding out from the drama inside. Sure, someone could research him and track down the place – maybe it's still even standing, but no one could guess to recreate the changes Arthur's childhood imagination made to the place, not even his sisters.

He puts memories of his parents fighting into the scratches and dust of the galvanized iron walls; his first crush's name is scorched into the earth under the cement flooring; his first day at school is immortalized in the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. He hides his life in the junk and old furniture, his hopes and fears are in the sounds the oak tree outside makes as the wind scraps its branches on the shed.

He finds parts of himself he'd thought he'd forgotten, in that shed. He finds a picture his youngest sister had emailed him last year of her newborn baby (his nephew – fuck, Arthur's an _uncle_), he finds his favourite jumper from when he was 7 and obsessed with elephants, he finds his high school yearbook and he looks at the face of his best friend whose older brother was killed in their senior year for the twenty bucks in his wallet.

It leaves him raw, this searching through his own mental trash, but he thinks Mal may have had a point when she ordered him to do this. It hurts, but so does popping a dislocated joint back into place.

* * *

A week after the failed extraction exercise, Harris tells Arthur to attend a meeting with himself and a visiting higher-up. Arthur goes, wary and fully aware of the fact that he's going to be offered another active duty contract very soon.

A year ago, he would have signed, no problems, but now… now he's watched three good people die as a probable result of this secret project, and he can feel himself regressing to how he was: alone, apart, cold, empty, grey. The army gave him a reason to live four years ago, but it's different now. Now it's draining away all the good things, and the people Arthur lives, breathes, works with are the only thing keeping him together.

He knows that if he asks, they probably won't let him go back to the regular army, not when he's the best (non-civilian) at dreamshare on this base. Harris is usually a pretty good guy, but Arthur's hear rumours about the Colonel, and no one seems to like him. _Forceful, bully, uppity jackass_ were the kinder terms used.

Harris is a bit on edge, and that puts Arthur on edge.

The Colonel faces Arthur and Arthur immediately dislikes him. "We've been conferring with _other_ specialists in the field," (_who aren't the lily-livered Cobbs_, Arthur interprets,) "and there are other ways to get information from the enemy through dreamshare than straightforward interrogation." (_straightforward torture, we mean, oh but it's not torture if there's no organ failure or death._) "Your Sergeant here tells me you're the best at this business, Corporal."

Arthur doesn't trust himself to respond on the topic of interrogation, so he limits himself to a "Yes, sir." He'd try for modesty, normally, but he's not in the mood to play down his skills for this man.

Thompson nods approvingly. "I'm assigning you specialised training in intelligence-gathering. If it takes, you'll help train the rest of your squad later."

He's not even remotely surprised, but he still freezes with defiance for a moment.

"Oh, and Corporal?" Thompson says, almost as an afterthought, "I'll have administration send over your new active-duty contract immediately, so that you can get started on this assignment with no interruptions."

* * *

He doesn't go to find Mal. He wants to, but he can't put this shit on her. Besides, he knows what she's say.

She takes the option out of his hands anyway by finding him outside in a tree.

"Do you have spies everywhere?" He demands when she looks up at him. "I swear, a man can't sneeze around here without you knowing about it."

"Arthur, come down from there. If you fall, I won't be able to fix you – I'm not that kind of doctor, remember?" She says firmly, but not unkindly.

He deliberates for a moment and then sighs and slips down the tree trunk. She wanders over to sit on a nearby rock and Arthur follows resentfully.

"I saw Anton Lukin wandering the halls."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Arthur gives in and asks.

She smooths out her shirt over her knees. "He's an extractor." Mal replies coldly. "And an unprofessional _salaud_." She continues in French but Arthur doesn't catch what she's saying.

"I expect he's the expert they want to teach me extraction." Arthur says tonelessly.

Mal turns away to look into the distance. "I expect so."

"What, that's it? You're not going to try to talk me out of it?"

She turns back and she's so world-weary all of a sudden that she looks every day of her 29 years. "If there is one thing I have learned about you, Arthur, it is that no force in the universe could move you when you're intent on acting to the contrary."

Arthur doesn't respond.

"You need to decide for yourself – do you want to become who they want you to become? You would be good at it; you're sharp, professional, able to distance yourself. You could be the next Anton Lukin. Or you could leave before they affect you anymore, leave and be someone else. You could be a fire-fighter or an astronaut or a trapeze artist. You could be anyone."

He thinks about what his family would say if they could see what he's becoming now. He wonders what Jenny from school would have said.

"I know the army helped, Arthur." She says, and puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I know it helped you sort out your life, I know without it you may not have made it here. But you can't stay here indefinitely just because you're grateful. Maybe it's time to move on."

Arthur looks at the horizon and thinks _maybe._

* * *

**Notes:** Next and hopefully final part of this particular arc should be up in a few days.

Btw, Mal's library thing is just one room of her childhood home as per the movie, and in another room is where the dollhouse with the top is. The library is bigger on the inside, OKAY? Okay. /tardis noises/


	8. Part 4-3

**Notes:** Okay, so I lied before. There's still one last part left to this arc after this. It's almost over, though, and then there will be Eames and flirty banter again.

* * *

Mal hadn't even asked Arthur, is the thing. He might have gone along with her plan if she'd asked, but she _hadn't_, and had just done whatever she thought best, never mind how it might affect _Arthur_, for her to play God with his fricking _life._

It started like this:

"If I find you a way to get out of the reserves, will you leave?"

Arthur had shrugged. "Yeah, sure. I guess."

And ended a week later with Harris awkwardly cornering Arthur and saying: "I'm sorry, I wouldn't have taken it any higher but whoever sent me the photos also sent them to Thompon, and you know he's not exactly known for his understanding."

"What?" Arthur had asked intelligently, not at his best on two hours of sleep.

"Your, uh, personal life. I never would have taken it further, I don't give a crap what you kids do on leave, and most of the others don't either, but sadly, the US is behind the times and Thompson is taking action despite the fact I've objected. I mean, I tried to say they were obviously photo-shopped, but he can barely operate a phone, so photo-shopping is a bit beyond his understanding. He's applied for your discharge. I just thought I'd give you the heads up, but you didn't hear it from me, right?"

Arthur stands there dumbfounded for a few moments before he goes hunting for Mal.

* * *

"You had no right!" He hisses, trying to keep his voice at a normal temperature, but the dream labs are sound proofed anyway. "When you asked me if I'd leave if you found a way, I meant that you'd run it by me first! Not go around telling my CO's CO that I'm gay!"

"You were going to let them take you apart piece by piece and re-build you into a perfect war machine! If I had asked, you would have said no!" She screams back at him, taking no care for people who might walk in.

"You don't know that! But you don't get to decide for me. This is my life you're fucking with, Mallorie! It's not a dream to manipulate into shape just how you want it. I am a real person, with real hopes and dreams, with a _life_, and you just dropped a fucking freight train in the middle of it!"

"Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to save an arrogant, stupid little boy who doesn't know what's best for him!"

"Oh, and I suppose you _do_ know what's best? Ruining the only thing in my life that's worth anything?"

"It's not ruined, you idiot boy! If you really want, you can just tell them it's a malicious prank, that the photos are fake!"

Arthur takes a step back. "Yeah, suppose I do that, and suppose they tentatively believe me. Then suppose they decide to look closer just to check, and suppose they find some that _aren't_ fake?"

All the wind leaves her sails. "Oh."

"Yes, oh." Arthur mocks. "Liking girls doesn't make me exclusively straight – you really thought that one through well, _Doctor_. And tragically, I can't be 100 precent certain that there _aren't_ any pictures anywhere. There were a few months between school and the army that I have only a hazy memory of."

She's silent for a moment, but clearly remorseful. "I didn't know. I didn't think. But Arthur, surely you understand that what I did was only with the best intentions for you? You don't take care of yourself, you don't put yourself first. Someone has to, and I tried my best to do right for you."

He doesn't know how to respond to that.

"What will you do?" She asks eventually, softly.

He shrugs tensely. "I'll let you know if I figure that out."

* * *

After Mal leaves, Cobb approaches Arthur and says to him: "If you ever speak to my wife that way again, they won't find enough of you to identify."

Arthur resists telling Cobb all the ways in which he is better trained in killing people and merely nods. So maybe Dom gets a few points for having Mal's back when he feels she needs it. No need to advertise the fact.

* * *

Arthur hasn't had a real, coherent dream in the better part of a year. Sometimes he still wakes up with impressions of ideas and feeling in the back of his head, but they're never any more solid or structured than a tumble of images with a sort of frantic confusion to them. The readings Mal's assigned him on the topic tells him dreams are a necessary way of processing memories and experiences. He supposes these dream-messes are his brain's way of making do.

Somnacin-users don't dream, but Arthur finds out the hard way that they can still have nightmares.

* * *

He's in his home town, and the streets have been leeched of colour, but that doesn't strike him as odd. He's gone past his high school, and then past the cemetery his grandpa is buried in that's two towns over in reality. They're closer to Canada than Mexico here, but there's flies buzzing and cicadas chirping under the baking afternoon sun.

He's trying to run, but every step he takes is like wading through molasses. He's not sure whether he's running to or from something, but there is a sick, urgent dread in his stomach. In hours, or maybe no time at all, he's making his way up the steps to his parent's house, only the yard looks like his hated old piano teacher's front yard instead, ugly little garden gnomes and all.

Inside, his mother is baking cookies, and she's gaunt and tired and older than he's ever seen her, but there's a sickeningly bright smile on her face. His youngest sister, Jessie is there too, bouncing her baby on her lap, only he's not a baby anymore. He's at least seven, but wearing only a diaper and sobbing hysterically as Jess tries to soothe him. His middle sister Rachel is blathering on to her newest shitty boyfriend on a cell phone. They all acknowledge Arthur, but only as if he'd just stepped out to get some bread, not as if he's been gone four years after a massive fight. His father is conspicuously absent.

Arthur tries to ask if they've missed him, but his voice isn't working. He hears a truck pull up outside and he sees the camo colours of the Humvee through the kitchen window only a second before the shooting starts.

He tries to push Jess and her kid behind the kitchen counter as he watches Rachel's shirt blossom with red, the only colour noticeable around them. He hears his mother scream as he and Jess hit the ground and Jessie's kid (what's his name, he should know this) is wailing even louder than before, only he's a toddler now.

Jess is limp in his arms and he turns her over to get a look at her face, only her eyes are glassy and cold and there's an army-issue knife sticking out of her front. When her turns to look for the kid, there's only a swaddle of blankets and pacifier where there was once a child.

He scrambles up, keeping cover behind the counter as the shooting continues, makes his way over to Rachel but she's got no pulse. His mother's on the other side of the kitchen, and by the time he makes his way over to her, her screams of fear have transformed into wails of pain, but she takes the time to curse at him before a trickle of blood makes its way out of her mouth and she too falls lifeless under his hands.

He tries to defend himself to her, tries to apologise, to say _I didn't mean to lead them here, I didn't know, I swear, mom_, but then he looks down at his hands and there's a smoking gun in his hands, and the windows are intact, and there's no army truck outside after all.

* * *

Arthur wakes clammy and shaking, with the sour taste of vomit in his mouth.

* * *

In the morning Harris asks Arthur to meet him and the Colonel. He's wearing a pinched, apprehensive expression. Arthur doesn't even hesitate before he follows.

* * *

**tbc**


	9. Part 4-4

"Do you know why you're here?" Thompson asks before Arthur has even sat down in the hard plastic chair Harris has waved him at.

There's really no need to Harris to be staring warning daggers at him, Arthur's not going to tell on him for spilling about the photos.

"I'm not certain, sir." He responds, and he's not even lying.

"We've received some troubling pictures, Corporal. Take a look at these."

Arthur permits himself only a raised eyebrow at Mal's choice of source photos. The people in them are very muscled, and very definitely male. The person who's face has been replaced with Arthur's (fairly well, he must admit - but then, he'd expect nothing less of an artist like Mal) is built similarly to him, though, and Arthur would be hard pressed to prove they weren't really him, except there's the hint of an upper-arm tattoo on the edge of one of the photos, one that Arthur doesn't share. He shuffles through the other photos until he finds a better shot of it. It's the Chinese character for _heaven_ and Arthur fights not to groan.

"Well?" Thompson demands after Arthur's looked through them. "Any defence? Denials?" He's remarkably calm though, for a man Harris had implied was hell-bent on personally crucifying Arthur for his sins against common decency.

There's only one photo where the tattoo is clearly visible, but Harris has served with him long enough to have had plenty of looks at Arthur's bare arms.

"They're fakes, sir. This isn't me." There's no heat or indignation in his voice. Everyone knows Arthur as a cold bastard with a slow-burning temper. No need to over-play this.

"Oh?" Thompson asks. "See, we thought that was a bit odd, someone suddenly sending these photos to not only Harris here, but myself and several other commissioned officers. People try this sort of thing, you know, when they get old feet about the army. Try to get out any old way, even by pretending to be a queer."

"Not me, sir. The army is the best thing that's ever happened to me." Technically still the truth.

"So you didn't send these yourself? Or ask a friend to do it for you?"

"No, sir. I did not." He sure as shit didn't _ask_ anything of the sort.

"Any idea why someone would play such a nasty prank, Corporal?" Thompson is watching him intently.

He knows he's got the tattoo and Arthur's strong denial in his favour, even though it's not an obvious ploy to get discharged. If Arthur plays along, Thompson has a very strong case for keeping him here another four years. So maybe he over-reacted at Mal, he can salvage his army career if he's willing to play at it hard enough. This is the moment where he has to commit to it, though. This is his get out of jail card, he has to use it or burn it up. He has to decide right now what sort of person he's going to spend the rest of his life being.

He'd already decided, though. He'd known before Mal had even sent those stupid pictures, before he'd seen what level she could stoop to to get her way.

"It was Mallorie Cobb, sir. She manufactures the pictures and sent them to yourself and your esteemed collegues."

Harris freezes and his eyes widen. Thompson smirks. He has probably been looking for a reason to get rid of her and Dom. Harris is blinking something like _what the hell are you doing_ at Arthur in Morse code.

"Really?" Thompson chuckles. "And why would the charming Mrs Cobb do such a thing? I must admit, it doesn't surprise me when women go on frolicks of their own like this, but Harris here told me the two of you got along quite well."

_Doctor_, Arthur doesn't correct. He thinks about all the times the Cobbs have affected his life, for better or for worse. "Well, sir," he starts, tries to smile reassuringly at Harris without seeming to, and times his response to match when Thompson takes a sip of his coffee, "I expect her deep and eternal loathing of me began when she walked in on me having sex with her husband."

* * *

They drag poor Dom in, of course, and Arthur is kind of worried that Dom will ruin everything by being disapproving and superior and frowny at Arthur, but he's only bewildered when Thompson snarks: "Is it true?" at him.

Arthur doesn't nod at Dom, doesn't blink, doesn't make any signal except the slight lift of the left side of his mouth where he's trying very hard not to smirk. This is Cobb's time to shine, this is the moment when he proves to Arthur that he's either a cowardly asshole or a man worthy of Mallorie Miles-Cobb.

"Were you having… uh… _inappropriate relations_ with the Corporal here? Is that why your wife tried to get him discharged from the army?" Thompson manages to stumble out the words, face turning purple with the idea of any kind of sex other than the missionary-style, hetrosexual, pro-creationally purposed kind.

Cobb still looks bewildered and a little bit scared, but he pulls together admirably at the mention of Mal and even stands a little straighter when he stutters out: "Uh, yes. With Arthur. Very, uh, hot, steamy... relations. Sometimes twice. With- with a bit of a break, of course, I'm not eighteen anymore, you know - but yes. To the relations."

Arthur is grinning so hard his face hurts. He could kiss Cobb, but he might just break the man, so he bravely resists.

Oh, but his _face_. And Thompson's face. And Harris's face - but that's a little sad, because he looks like Arthur just won a million dollars and then burned the winning ticket to ashes. Or kicked a puppy. Probably the puppy.

Mal isn't going to be please when hers and Dom's contract with the Army miraculously finds itself voided, but Arthur figures it's only fair return for her meddling without asking.

* * *

Two weeks later Arthur walks away from the army with a small satchel in hand and Mal and Dom waiting for him on the other side of a long airplane flight. He stays in touch with Harris and Walker and some of the others, but he never looks back.

* * *

**Notes:** End of the army arc (assuming there are no more plot bunnies). Overarching story to be continued.


	10. Part 5

**Notes: **By the way, I feel I ought let you guys know that Zoe is Zoe from Firefly, but no, this isn't a crossover. I just suck at making entirely original things.

* * *

The year James is born, Mal and Dom both stop working for six months to 'be a family' or something. Mal won't satisfactorily answer Arthur's bewildered queries as to what the fuck that even _means_. He's left completely on his own for the longest time since he left the army.

Zoe's more than happy to poach him, though, and Arthur tries not to miss Mal's artistic streak and Dom's admitted genius. Zoe's competent, and a good leader – never mind the fact that Arthur considers her a friend – but she's always going to be a mere soldier, like Arthur, and never as intuitive and free-spirited (or maybe crazy and risk-taking) as the Cobbs.

She knows her own failings in the creativity department, though, so she's solved the problem by inviting along Eames for a lot of the work. Not all of it needs a forger in the strict sense, but it doesn't hurt, and Zoe claims he's great to bounce ideas off of, if nothing else. Arthur tries not to sulk about the fact that he, apparently, _doesn't_ make a good sounding board. It does make sense, in a way, he and Zoe are practically brain-twins, and neither cold out-think the other.

* * *

They've been contracted to train a billionaire's son's subconsciousness. In the growing world of dreamshare, at least as many people are concerned with _keeping_ their secrets as are with stealing their neighbours'. Some people have a naturally defensive mind: like Mal – god help the person who tries to extract from her maze of a mind; and some people have been inadvertently trained into it, like Arthur and Zoe. But for everyone else, any old fool of an extractor could be in an out in five real world minutes with most of their deepest, darkest secrets.

Mr Sheppard's son is a 25 year old party animal and perpetual student. He's on his third attempt at post grad college. He's tried medicine (MCAT scores bought by Daddy) and dropped out, law (paid some kid to sit the LSAT) and been kicked out, and now he's giving electrical engineering a whirl.

Sheppard Junior has probably killed every last brain cell with drugs and alcohol, but that doesn't stop Daddy from being concerned about his kid getting mind-jacked for information. In any case, they're being paid a _lot_ not to look into what Sheppard Senior might be protecting in his kid's head.

* * *

Arthur and Zoe land in San Francisco and find Eames waiting for them with an honest to god Hawaiian print t-shirt and a shit-eating grin. Arthur is reminded that high blood pressure runs in his family and maybe he should go see a doctor about some pills for that before it becomes a problem.

* * *

Andrew Sheppard lives in a remodelled warehouse bigger than three of Arthur's child hood homes put together. He supposes he'd better be grateful it's not a frat house, although Andrew does seem to treat it like one. Zoe puts her foot down and makes him get rid of all the hungover and passed out party goers from the night before and destroys all the drugs she finds in the place.

Andrew only gives the token protest of a person who has no appreciation of how many thousands of dollars' worth of pills Zoe just flushed down the toilet.

The place is a fucking pig sty, though, despite the weekly cleaner Daddy sends around. Even Eames looks disgusted, and Arthur made the mistake of tipping his keyboard upside down, so he knows what a lazy slob Eames can be.

The fourth member of their team arrives the next day, and it's fucking Gino of all people. Gino once shot Arthur in the foot. In real life. On purpose. Gino is not once of Arthur's favourite people.

The first thing Gino says when he gets there is: "Zoe, honey – still with that schmuck of a husband? Or are you willing to have a go with a real man?"

Arthur tries to restrain himself, he really does. It doesn't matter though, because before he can open his mouth, Eames chimes in: "Well, if you ever find a _real man_, you send him Zoe's way, yeah?"

There's a moment when Arthur is about ready to kiss Eames for that. Then he gets a hold of himself and remembers the leopard print thing.

* * *

Arthur yells at Zoe for not asking him about Gino, or, you know, at least _warning_ him, but Zoe yells back that they'd better get over their little spat and don't they dare have at it on her time.

Zoe is kind enough, however, to pair herself with the ever insufferable Gino – he makes Eames look well-behaved, okay – and leaves Arthur to work with Eames. He does feel kind of bad about that, but Zoe's a big kid, she can kill a man a dozen different ways without breaking a sweat. She'll be alright, and her temper's better than Arthur's so it's probably for the best.

Eames takes one look at Zoe's scrawled 'plan' of operation and starts giggling. "A&E, huh? Oh god, how appropriate. That's definitely how this is going to end."

Arthur doesn't even bother asking. He gave up on understanding Eames a long time ago.

* * *

Arthur and Eames take the first turn at Andrew's mind. Arthur's heart sinks as he realises that he may have been spot-on about the brain cell death thing. Andrew's projections don't react to anything much, and telling Andrew himself that he's in a dream has brought about no response more vicious than an "oh, cool" followed by prompt amnesia.

"Is he just really stupid, do you think?" Arthur asks after dream time hours. "Or are we simply cursed to get the really laid-back ones?"

Eames raises an eyebrow. "Cursed? You know, most dream thieves would cheer at the idea of projections that _don't_ rip them to shreds."

"Yeah, well." Arthur grumbles. "I'm not most people. And anyway, the point is that we _do_ make him start ripping invaders to shreds, even us. Not like we're not getting compensated for our troubles."

Eames shrugs. "Maybe you should give me a go at building. Your dreams are too straight-forward, and maybe he is just so stupid his subconsciousness doesn't even realise it's not a dream. His conscious can't even hold on to the idea of lucid dreaming, for christ's sake."

"I didn't know you were any good at building. I thought there was a reason you don't ever get to be the architect?"

"Well." Eames' grin widens, and Arthur thinks of sharks. "There is a reason I don't usually build, yes, but it's not because of any sort of incapability."

He takes them down to his own subconsciousness the next time, and Arthur wishes he had never asked.

* * *

The thing is, Arthur had compared Mal's dream library to a painting once, but it was like a painting by an artist who retained some sort of realism. Eames' dreamscapes are like Salvador Dalí and Picasso's bastard lovechildren. Arthur knows all about physical impossibilities coming to life in dreams, paradox traps are his speciality, but those are mere physical impossibilities – what Eames has built is _unthinkable_.

They're walking through tangible music as ideas rain down from the sky. Arthur can smell _colours,_ and he looks at himself but he's not even a person anymore, never mind that he should be able to control his form, but he's just a spindly, pointy mess of black and red lines and sometimes he sparks electric green little lightning bolts when anything gets too close. Eames is- Arthur doesn't even know how he knows that's Eames anymore, but he does, and Eames is a cloud of glowing particles that pauses on one shape only momentarily and moves around like violin music and makes him think of a forest just after it's rained and the sun comes out.

Andrew, Arthur notes irritably, still looks like Andrew, but he's wandering around the landscape (he gets _feet_, the lucky bastard) like he hasn't a care in the world. There are no noticeable projections, but Arthur's not sure he could tell what's a projection and what's not here.

He's panicking a little because he hasn't a head or heart, so how can he shoot himself out of this terror of a dream and he has no feeling of time at all, but sooner than he expects, he feels the… landscape – if it can be called that – collapse, and he's waking up in Andrew's stupid warehouse and he's so relieved it scares him, only suddenly everything is flat and grey and merely three dimensional and rational again and he feels a little frustrated that he has to follow physical laws again.

"The _fuck_ was that?" Arthur demands as he stumbles out of his seat after pulling out the needle from his arm.

Eames sits up to stare while Andrew blink awake sluggishly.

"What was what?" Eames rolls up the PASIV lines carefully. "What happened to you? Where the hell were you?"

Arthur remembers they're not alone in the room, but Andrew is only looking between them and blinking owlishly and Zoe and Gino are still out. Arthur grabs Eames' arm and drags him outside throwing some sort of reassurance of their return at Andrew.

"The dream you built – what the fuck was wrong with it? I know Andrew's a pot-head at best and a crack-head at worst, but it was _your_ brain we were visiting, not his. What the fuck? You didn't think to warn me you were going to try to speak his druggie language?"

Arthur should be savouring this moment, because this is the first time in their acquaintance that Eames has dropped the unflappable smirk in favour of bewilderment. "Arthur, you're going to have to speak slower if you want me to understand. Did something go wrong with the PASIV? I've heard of people developing intolerances to Somnacin, maybe you should get tested. I have a friend who might be able to concoct an alternative if we figure out which part of the formula you're having a reaction to."

Arthur fights the urge to kick something. "It's not the Somnacin! It's your _mind_ – you're not even sane!"

Eames smirks a little. "I thought everyone in the industry knew _that_. But you'll still have to explain exactly what happened."

"No, you know what, you explain what happened! It's _your_ bloody brain."

He shrugs in response. "Alright. I built the school Andrew when to when he was eleven. I'm sure you know from the files that Daddy wasn't rich back then, and Andrew hadn't gotten into the habit of buying friends yet, so I suspect from what he's not said on the topic that he probably suffered his fair share of bullying, having been a scrawny and awkward kid. I figured a location that puts him on the defensive might help. It did. I guess you didn't see it, but after I'd made enough of a nuisance of myself, his projections managed to drown me in a toilet and god have mercy on your soul if you ever repeat that to anyone. I assume the dream fell apart without me, and you two woke up soon after me, but I didn't see _you_ once in the dream."

Arthur shivers suddenly and wonders if he's the one going crazy. Eames can be a dickhead and a liar, but he wouldn't lie about something like this.

He storms back inside where Andrew is opening himself a beer and snatches it away. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I distinctly remember Zoe telling you not to mix Somnacin with anything. Do you want to fuck your brain up any more than it already is?"

Eames kindly stays silent behind him and doesn't point out that alcohol has shown no especially adverse effects for mixing with dreamshare.

"Oh, come on! I'm thirsty!" Andrew whines.

"Water." Arthur orders. "And what do you remember of the dream?"

Andrew glowers as he rebelliously grabs a can of Fanta from the fridge. "I dunno. Not much. I think Ms Robins, my fifth grade teacher was there. She was pretty hot, for a teacher."

Arthur scowls at the back of Andrew's head as he turns away.

Eames clears his throat pointedly. "If I may have a moment, Arthur, I'd like to continue our conversation outside."

"What?" Arthur asks irritably once Eames has plonked himself unceremoniously down on the scrubby grass outside.

"It's cute, how you get what you want and move on, because heaven forbid other people try to do the same, but perhaps you'd like to share with the rest of the class? I need to know if this disappearing thing is going to happen again. I could call Zoe and ask her how she feels about you keeping important things to yourself?"

Arthur doesn't answer right away. "I didn't disappear, I was there, I could see – well, for some value of 'see' – you and Andrew there. I just couldn't _do_ anything."

Eames purses his mouth. "Maybe Zoe's not the best threat. She probably wouldn't damage you permanently, either physically or mentally. Maybe Gino will help loosen your tongue."

Arthur hopes that was just a figure of speech. "It was like something Lewis Carroll dreamt up, on acid, in space, while someone shot a high current through his brain."

Eames stares at him. "What did it _feel_ like?"

"Like a drug trip; what do you think?"

"No, I mean, did it seem like it was more _feelings_ than _things_?"

Arthur thinks about it, trying not to sound defensive when he responds. "Yeah, maybe a little."

Eames scratches the back of his head. "Ah. Well. You know all those times I've accused you of not having an imagination?"

"Yes?" Arthur asks suspiciously.

"Well, I was more right than my wildest dreams could have predicted. You are _literally_ incapable of processing empathic dream-builds. I can't actually fathom how rigidly your brain must work that that's an actual thing for you."

"Empathic?" He tries not to sound defensive. It's not his fault Eames is from another planet.

"Yeah, as opposed to optic. Most people do optic. Even the creative ones, they find it easier to plan out and then project exactly what they want the dreamer and any hangers-on to see. Like a jpeg image, all the data tells you exactly what each pixel is. Well, sort of like that. Me, I can do that, but it hurts my brain when I do it for too long, so usually I just project the idea I want the mark to get out of what I've built and their own brain fills it with whatever is appropriate. So it's more like a vector image – I tell them where to draw lines, but their own mind does the work for me. It might be an unorthodox method, but you're the first person who's had that much of a problem parsing it."

Arthur stares at him. "So you can't build like a normal person, and I can't translate what you do build."

"Not _can't_ in my case, so much as prefer not to. And you could probably be taught to let go of your rigid world-view enough to get the gist of my builds. Maybe you should take a leaf out of Andy-here's book and give mind-altering substances a try."

"Are you seriously suggesting that rather than you learning to do things the normal way, I should take drugs?"

Eames grins. "It sounds so terrible when you put it that way."

* * *

Arthur doesn't end up taking drugs, much to Eames' disappointment. He doesn't end up going down into Eames' mind again for that job anyway. They swap shifts a few times with Zoe and Gino so that they can get some real sleep, and a week later, Andrew is as militarised as he's ever going to get.

Before leaving, Arthur loses an the fight with his meddling side and has a stern talk with Andrew about getting his shit together enough to be worthy of all the opportunities he's been given.

Zoe overhears but doesn't comment on it.

* * *

Afterwards, Arthur gravitates the Cobb's, where he obediently makes approving noises at the baby and eventually gets Mal to forgo her domestic complaints about the rising cost of bread and cheese and explain empathic dreaming-builds.

"It's cheating, for lazy people who don't care for the artistry, and only care about manipulating the mark into seeing what will serve their end better." She declares hotly. "Real architects are making a piece of art, not a shortcut into a person's brain."

She does agree to give it a try in the hopes that exposing Arthur to it will get him better equipped to deal with it.

* * *

The next time he makes the mistake of venturing into Eames' mind, he's going to be prepared.


	11. Part 6-1

**Notes:** I'm not being a bit on-the-nose about Shizuka's name, okay; you can blame CLAMP for that. Yeah, I'm still at the character 'borrowing' game.

* * *

Mal and Dom have fallen off the face of the dreamshare world again, and Zoe is pregnant (of all the selfish things) so Arthur's working with a guy called Shizuka. Shizuka's the strong and silent type, but he makes a good enough team leader because he lets Arthur get on with his shit and only gives orders when they're necessary. They don't need more than the two of them, because what they're doing is probably going to be impossible anyway.

They're trying to extract from a comatose patient who hasn't woken up since she knocked her head after falling at home. No one's ever done this before, and Arthur and Shizuka are both very cautious people by nature, so they run through the plan a billion times before agreeing that it's now or never.

Shizuka doesn't build, and it's a rare extractor that doesn't, but they don't plan to need that anyway. Mrs Ross, an eighty two year old retired nurse, has no reason at all to be militarized, so his merely adequate skill is enough.

Mrs Ross's grandkids can't find a family heirloom ring she was supposed to have – it's not worth a whole lot, but the kids want it for the sentimental value. Arthur's worked with Shizuka once before, and he's usually fairly heartlessly practical, but this time, he's charging the client a fraction of the usual fee for something like this. Arthur doesn't ask why. Not his business, and he's hardly impoverished enough to miss the money from one job.

The thing is, once they manage to get the staff at the long-term care facility to leave them alone with Mrs Ross (her granddaughter Maria tells them Arthur's the family priest come to pray for Mrs Ross, and if Arthur had still believed in god he'd probably even more horrified than he is at that. The unconscious Mrs Ross is clearly wearing a crucifix while Arthur is most definitely not. (And boy would his parents have a field day with Arthur pretending to be a _Catholic_ _priest_ of all things.) The nurse who speaks to them buys it though, so it doesn't matter.

They take a real world fifteen minutes the first time because more may make the carer staff suspicious.

The doctors have assured the family that Mrs Ross still has brain activity, but comas are inherently different to sleep, so rather than taking Mrs Ross down into Arthur's dream, they decide to enter hers instead.

It doesn't end up mattering though, because there's no one but them in the dream when they go down.

The dream is Mrs Ross's house. The house is more or less true to reality, only it feels emptier and sadder than even the dusty reality they'd seen when they'd visited for research purposes.

He walks outside into the yard and the dream ends at the borders of the property.

Arthur's never been to the edge of a dream, because everyone he's been down with makes their dreamscapes big or contained enough that he never finds the edges and in any case, he's never gone exploring to that level; and in his own dreams, his mind automatically adds something on to the edges when he approaches them.

Here though, beyond the honest to god-picket fence of the front yard is nothing. Not nothing in a way he would have ever imagined, though, because to him 'nothing' is blackness, lack of light, outer space minus the stars, inky black night.

This nothingness isn't black: it isn't _anything_. If pushed for a colour, he would say grey, but he suspects that's only his mind trying to come to terms with non-existence. It's not a wall, it's not a sea, it doesn't even feel like empty space. It's the edge of everything that_ could_ be a wall or a sea or emptiness. It's not three dimensional space as he's even perceived it. It's not even like that time Eames tried to use his hippy voodoo building technique, because that had actually been filled with _something_, illogical and bizarre though that something had been.

This, this cessation of existence freaks Arthur the fuck out and he turns around and tries to spend the next few dream-time hours not looking at, or not seeing the edge of the property.

Mrs Ross herself doesn't appear, no projections appear, not even any Arthur or Shizuka might have brought in with them, but that's not surprising because Arthur has excellent mental control and doesn't really bring along projections by accident (which is really his paranoia and distrust preventing him from sharing any exploitable part of his mind with other people) and suspects Shizuka is the same.

It only takes them an hour to search the house from top to bottom for the ring, even though it wouldn't really help them since the real house, up topside, has been searched with a fine-tooth comb. None of the drawers or cupboards open, and when Arthur breaks open a kitchen cabinet, he finds there's nothing inside, just an empty MDF and formica box made to _look_ like a kitchen cabinet.

The end up spending the last few hours playing chess by drawing a board in the dirt outside. This inability to control a dream is why dream-thieves don't go into a mark's dream more often. Arthur hates it, because even if he's not always the builder, he can usually ask the dreamer to make him a nice big gun or something. Like this, they are sitting ducks, and Arthur flashes back to the first few times he'd gone under in the army, when none of them knew what the fuck they were doing and got killed very brutally more often than not. The edges of the dream are making him claustrophobic, too, because even in other people's dreams, even with no guns, he can always run, hide, find or make weapons. Here, there aren't even any butter knives in the kitchen.

He feels like a caged tiger that's been de-clawed and its canines pulled. It makes him antsy and unhappy.

* * *

When they wake up topside, Arthur is more relieved than even the time he woke up after the first time he'd died, slowly and painfully, in dreamscape.

* * *

The doctors had insisted there was no brain damage, but Arthur's not sure. Shizuka only shrugs when he suggest it though.

"She's in a coma, you can't expect her dreams to follow the usual rules. The empty dream island doesn't mean her brain is irreparably broken. And even if it is, as long as the bit we need is still there somewhere, we can try to find it."

Arthur's forgotten, somewhere along the line that it doesn't matter to them if Mrs Ross's brain is so much scrambled eggs. They've been hired only to find the damn ring. The sad, lonely little house in her dream had made him forget, had made him start feeling bad for the woman who's evident entire world was that little building.

It's kind of tragic, in an understated, quiet sort of way, that this woman's life has become so little, and that her family is paying money not to try to tell grandma and mom that they love her and miss her and are praying she's not in any discomfort, but to get the location of a shitty ring.

* * *

He rings Mal.

Arthur's great at problem-solving, he is, but sometimes his way of thinking is too linear. If he's given a metaphorical locked door to get past, he will try to pick the lock, he will try to kick it in, he will try to shoot the lock out or blow the door up, but sometimes it doesn't occur to him to look for another door. That's why he has Mal, to drag his attention outside the box.

* * *

"Have you tried going deeper than the first level?" Mal asks and Arthur ties not to smack himself in the head.

"… well. Not exactly." He admits after a moment.

She only laughs at him. "Don't worry, darling, I only jumped to that because we've been experimenting with levels."

Arthur's immediately worried. Sometimes Mal's curiosity kicks in a lot earlier than her sense of self-preservation. Cobb isn't any better, only his curiosity is more nerdy thirst for knowledge where Mal's is a child-like wonder at the universe.

"Are you being careful? Remember that time we went down to Three and the dream was so shaky it kept collapsing random parts on us? Four is probably worse, and I've never heard of anyone getting to Four and living to tell the tale, anyway."

"Oh, Arthur, of course we're being careful. But you may now change your statement, because I've been to Four, only briefly, but I got there, and I have lived to tell the tale."

Arthur rubs his temples tiredly. It's not enough he has to worry about external causes of harm to all the people he give a crap about, no, they need to put themselves in harm's way, too. Sometimes he wishes he had the power to take them all and to put them in a safe box where they couldn't hurt themselves, but he supposes that keeping his loved ones as prisoners with no free will would be defeating the whole point of their personhood and that their personhood is the reason he cares in the first place.

"Mal, you have two children. You have a husband. A stupid, careless, impulsive bastard of a husband, but a husband nonetheless. You have your parents and you have _me_, okay, and you can't just think about the risks you take as risks to yourself, because they are risks to all of the people who give a damn about you, too."

There's stony silence from her end. "And I suppose you, being a _man_, are _allowed_ to take those risks where I am not? You might have been the first person ever to have tried entering a comatose person's mind today. The nothingess you spoke of, that could have been the only thing down there. You could have been stuck there. You could have _died_."

He sighs. "It's not because I'm a man, don't be pretend to be stupid, Mal. It's because I have a family to whom I'm practically dead anyway, and because the only people who give a shit if I live or die are you, and arguably Dom, and you both have other people in your lives who would keep you grounded if anything happened to me. And I did take precautions. I'm not asking you to stop your explorations of dreaming altogether, I'm just asking you to be cautious and to think carefully several times before you do anything new or dangerous. Sleep on major decisions, okay? Real sleep, I mean."

She sighs. She sounds defeated when she answers. "I'll try. But only if you promise the same thing."

Arthur smiles, even though Mal can't see him. "I promise. You won't be rid of me _that_ easily."

* * *

**tbc**


	12. Part 6-2

The doctors are still insisting there is no lasting brain damage. In fact, there's no reason Mrs Ross can't wake up. Sometimes comatose patients just don't ever regain consciousness.

Sometimes, Arthur thinks, the human brain is just a dick.

* * *

Following Mal's suggestion, they go into Mrs Ross's dream again with the intention of trying for the second level.

They can't dream up a PASIV like usual, being in Mrs Ross's dream and therefore not in control, but Shizuka at least knows some of the basics of forging, and is able to create a PASIV as a part of his person. Possibly because he is so rarely without one up-top that he visualises himself with it automatically, but Arthur doesn't really understand forging enough to be able to speculate authoritatively.

There's still no Mr Ross to hook up to the PASIV, though. The shrug at each other, Arthur very carefully doesn't think about his promise to Mal, and they plug themselves in while leaving the third line empty.

Shizuka shares a final look with Arthur and hits the button.

* * *

They find themselves in a hospital. The fact that there is anything down there at all is promising. Arthur tries not to think about what might have happened to them if there hadn't been.

This level is the orthopaedic ward of the nearby hospital where Mrs Ross used to work. It looks nothing like it does now up topside, but Arthur supposes it's changed a lot in the last twenty years since she worked there last. There's no nothingness edges to the dream this time, but there are no exits to the ward and what they can see through the windows appears no more real than a photo or paining of the outside world that someone has placed beyond the glass. He's worked in contained dreams like this before, but it still makes Arthur feel antsy and trapped.

There are a couple of projections around, but they can't find any trace of Mrs Ross herself other than the name _Vivian Ross_ scrawled on the month's roster. The projections aren't terribly helpful, because they're all either spaced-out nurses and doctors wandering aimlessly around with clipboards and syringes or unconscious patients on life support (_life support?_ Arthur thinks, dumbfounded, _in **ortho**?_ There aren't any apparent broken bones on them, either, and no casts).

None of the projections are hostile, so that's something, Arthur supposes.

They take their time thoroughly searching the dream, but although some cupboards and drawers actually function as they are supposed to here, they still contain nothing interesting.

"Maybe we should take a look at the next level." Arthur says desperately after a while.

Shizuka nods. "We'd better try, at least."

* * *

Three is a train carriage. The doors to the rest of the train don't open, but the scenery outside the windows looks more real than that visible from the hospital, even if it does look like it might be looping every few 30 seconds or so.

The train is old. Or, not _old_, so much as old-_fashioned_. Arthur's seen trains like these in movies, but never in person.

The carriage is filled with children holding brown boxes marked with names. Some children have the same names, and they're all plain, common names. Several children are crying, but none of them pay any attention to Arthur or Shizuka.

Shizuka motions Arthur over to a little girl who is staring out of the window and stubbornly ignoring the crying boy next to her. She looks about twelve or thirteen.

"Look at the name tag." Shizuka murmurs.

_Vivian Shaw_, Arthur reads. His eidetic memory provides the rest from background info they were given: _born 12 August 1926, Glasgow. _"Her maiden name."

Shizuka nods.

Arthur looks around at the children again. One of them has opened up his brown box and is playing around with a gas mask. "The Blitz. This is her memory of being evacuated from the city."

"Most likely." Shizuka agrees and then orders: "Talk to her. See how aware she is."

Arthur doesn't question the order, even though he's pretty terrible with kids who aren't Phillipa. (He's happy to listen to her chattering about her toys and their dramatic and scandal-filled lives because she reminds him of what Mal must have been like as a child, but James is only a baby and Arthur doesn't _get_ babies. They just _lie_ there.)

He squares his shoulders and prepares himself for arguing with a sulky pre-teen.

"Can I sit here?" he asks her, indicating the seat across from her.

She turns her head slowly to grace him with the most disdainful look he's ever gotten from a kid, and Arthur's babysat Mal and Dom's spawn.

"I don't know, _can_ you?" The Scottish drawl would be adorable if it weren't quite so venomous.

He sits anyway. "On your way to the countryside, huh? First time away from your parents? Must be scary."

"I'm twelve!" She exclaims in outrage. "Not some sort of _baby_." She throws a disgusted look at the sobbing five year old next to her.

Well. Sometimes the best way with these sorts of things is to just ask the mark outright. If nothing else, it focuses their mind on the secret you want to steal, so that when you build them a bank vault or a safe, they'll populate it with the _right _secret. (So maybe there'd been an instance in the past where instead of schematics, they'd found an assortment of pornography of an affair the mark had been having, so now maybe Arthur is extra keen to be thorough.)

"May I ask you a question?"

She smirks at him. "You just did."

Arthur won't stoop to a glaring match with a twelve year old, but it's tempting. "You grandmother, she gave you a ring on your last birthday. It's a very special ring to your family, isn't it?"

The children all around them suddenly stop talking or crying.

Vivian narrows her eyes at him, not perturbed by the sudden silence. "I suppose it is."

Okay, suspicion is not a good place to start. He and Shizuka are not even armed. Not that Arthur would start shooting a bunch of kids (unless attacked first), even if they are only projections, but he suspects Shizuka would have no such qualms.

(There was a job that he pulled, way back, with Zoe and Eames, where Arthur and Zoe had lied through their teeth to the mark until they were blue in the face to no effect, only to have Eames waltz up with a wink and promise him a cut of their payout in exchange for the information they'd been paid to extract.

Arthur had been flabbergasted, because they were _thieves_ – telling the truth and _asking_ for the information shouldn't have worked, but it had.

Eames had redeemed his reputation as a slippery bastard, though when he's made off without paying the mark the promised money. He'd later excused it as "A person who sells out their boss shouldn't get paid for being a disloyal prick." And Arthur had honestly not known whether to punch him or to shake his hand.)

Arthur thinks about how sometimes, even in their line of work, honesty might actually be a good policy. Not the best, but a useable one.

"I don't want to steal your ring or anything." He says truthfully. "But your family are looking for it, and they can't come here to ask you themselves, so they sent me."

Vivian does something, something that looks a lot like what forgers do when they morph, and she's suddenly a forty-something, stern looking lady in an old-fashioned nurse uniform and dyed orange-brown, prematurely greying hair.

"And it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that they're more worried about the stupid ring than about me." Her accent sounds more American now, with only a hint of the Scottish vowels remaining. "You tell those good for nothing children that I've made arrangements so that they get _nothing_. I don't even own the house, I sold it and gave the money to charity, and I'm renting it from the new owner for a pittance because I didn't want those selfish little things to challenge my will later. My entire estate is very nearly the clothes on my back. You tell Jocelyn and David that they're not getting a _penny_."

"You remember." Arthur asks. It's stupid of him to assume, but he'd been thinking of those dreams where you wake up convinced you're late for school only once you've fully woken up you realise that you graduated years ago and you don't go to school anymore.

She sniffs elegantly. "Of course I remember. I would have left something for Bobby, because he's a good boy, but his harpy of a wife would have spent it all, and anyway, he's not the material type. Writers, you know. Head up in the clouds. When he was a boy, he would forget to eat if someone wasn't there to remind him."

Arthur wants to say: maybe your other children are such shits because you raised them that way, but that's not fair, and anyway, he's probably biased in that regard. In any case, it's still tragic, and he agrees that it's shitty of the kids to go after the ring if they don't give a stuff about Mrs Ross. If she'd been a bad parent, the kids could have just ignored her, never visited and moved on with their lives, not gone looking for some stupid ring.

"Mrs Ross," Arthur starts, "even if you don't like some of your children, don't you want the ring, a family heirloom, to stay in the family? If you like Bobby, I could arrange for him to receive it. His wife is expecting, I hear. He could pass it on to his child."

She shakes her head. "It doesn't matter."

"No, it does! Just because you immigrated to another country and married an American, it doesn't mean you have to forsake your heritage. You can let it live on."

She raises a hand up to cover an indelicate snort. "Boy, you've been watching too many Hollywood films. And anyway, it doesn't matter because I couldn't pass down the ring even if I wanted to. I sold it thirty years ago when Jocelyn was sick and I needed time off to look after her, but someone needed to keep paying the bills. It didn't fetch much, either, I can tell you that. So you tell those children of mine, they've already enjoyed value of that ring in the bread they ate and the clothes they wore."

"You sold it." Arthur repeats.

"Yes. And I'd have done it sooner if I'd known this would be where we would all end up."

Arthur looks up at Shizuka, but gets only a shrug in response.

"Well. I suppose that was your prerogative, Mrs Ross." He responds. "I suppose we'll leave you to it, then."

She leans forward and grabs his arm. "Wait. Can't you take me with you?"

He shares a grim look with Shizuka.

"Mrs Ross," he starts cautiously, "what's the last thing you remember?"

She gives him a withering look. "I'm old, not senile. I fell down the stairs because the roof had leaked and left a puddle. Then I was here. Either this is a most awful excuse for heaven – or for hell, for that matter – or this is some sort of purgatory or limbo for people who aren't quite there yet."

Arthur starts. That is a surprisingly logical deduction for someone potentially brain damaged and aged eighty two, no less. "Well no, you're not in limbo."

Shizuka puts a finger to his lips, indicating silence, and Arthur agrees. Just because her kids somehow managed to find out about dreamshare, doesn't mean they should go around advertising it to anyone who will listen. Even if Mrs Ross is not exactly in a position to be sharing this knowledge with anyone else.

"Can you get me out of here, though?" She asks, a edge of desperation creeping into her voice. "Do you require some sort of payment? A favour? I don't have any money left, but you people probably have no use for such things anyway."

Shizuka snorts.

Arthur wonders who exactly 'you people' are supposed to be. "Mrs Ross. I don't require payment; you kids have already sorted that out, anyway. I'm not sure who you think we are, but I don't have the power to help you. I'm sorry."

She blinks at him and suddenly she's not the forty-something nurse, now she's just an old lady in a hospital gown with tubes sticking out of her. "You're the people who step in to fix things."

Arthur frowns. He supposes that's not wrong, but it's still not an accurate way of putting it. "We're not some sort of universal police, if that's what you're getting at. We're just people."

"Not police, dear." She smiles. "But you answered my children's prayers. Surely you could try to answer mine?"

With a sinking feeling in his heart, Arthur realises that she thinks they're angels or something.

* * *

Arthur should have known that arguing with a Scottish-born woman is a doomed venture, and Shizuka doesn't help him in the slightest when he tries to explain to Mrs Ross that what she is asking is a medical impossibility.

"I'm not even a doctor! And the doctors can't help you, so how could I?" he argues.

It doesn't do any good.

Eventually, Shizuka pipes up.

"Why don't we just shoot her out of this level like we normally do?"

Arthur turns to stare at him and thinks _traitor_ very loudly at his head. "_Because_, we don't have any guns! And anyway, there's no body for Mrs Ross to wake up in on Two, she's not even hooked up to our PASIV! For all we know, this isn't her dream, this is ours and simply a manifestation of your desire to find Mrs Ross, and in reality she's brain dead and there's nothing down here."

"If she's brain dead, then her shooting out of the dream won't have any negative consequences." Shizuka argues, irritatingly logical. "If she's real, then we'd of course have to follow soon after so as not to get trapped in a collapsing dream. The no body up on Two thing – say the worst happens and she's trapped in here forever. How is that any worse than what she's got now? And as for guns, Mrs Ross, we're in the middle of the second world war, surely there are firearms hidden in the overhead compartments in case the worst happens?" Shizuka plants the suggestion in her mind. "The people escorting you would have been prepared for any eventuality."

After a moment of watching Mrs Ross's face, Shizuka walks over to the over-head compartment and opens it to reveal a plain shotgun and a pair of intricately decorated nineteenth century-style pistols.

"I imagined them, didn't I?" Mrs Ross says wonderingly and then shrugs embarrassedly. "The only gun I've ever seen is in person is my uncle's shotgun for scaring off foxes from the farm. The pistols, those I saw in a film about pirates and they were all I could imagine when you said guns."

Arthur tries to disguise his sigh. It's still progress. It's not proof that Mrs Ross is real, because this could be his or Shizuka's dream, and one of them could be creating the guns, but it's something.

"Fine. We can try this." He is addressing Mrs Ross but then turns to Shizuka. "If this ends up with me dead or a vegetable, you can explain to Mallorie Cobb whose fault it was, right? And honestly? Six foot two you may be, but I don't fancy your chances against that woman."

* * *

Thankfully the pistols are loaded, and work (unlike the kitchen drawers up on One, Arthur thinks resentfully).

Arthur braces himself as Shizuka shoots Mrs Ross point blank in the head. Her body crumples. Arthur tries not to feel sick.

_It's okay, she wanted this_, he tries to tell himself.

He shrugs when Shizuka holds up the remaining loaded gun (and who imagines one round guns, anyway? What possible good would they be against invading Germans?) and the shotgun.

Shizuka places the pistol aside for himself, the bastard, and aims the shotgun at Arthur. Arthur resists the urge to close his eyes and tries not to remember the time he got shot-gunned in a dream only didn't die for a good twenty agonising minutes.

* * *

When they wake up on Two, Arthur's panicked because this is not something anyone has ever tried before, there's no way this is going to work, they've probably just destroyed the last part of this woman's brain.

He can't bear to open his eyes and look to see if Shizuka's even woken up, and then he hears the younger version of Mrs Ross squealing: "Janie! Oh look, and there's Deb! And Dr Wilson, oh, we all used to have the hugest crush on him."

Arthur opens his eyes and sees that Mrs Ross's hair is naturally auburn again and she's not a day over thirty, here.

"Mrs Ross," Arthur says, "wouldn't you rather stay here, where you're young, and happy with your colleagues? Time moves slowly here, you would have years and years until your body gave in up above. You're a widow in your eighties up there, you hate your kids, you're finding it hard to live alone now. What do you have waiting for you there?"

She smiles at him sadly, and she's still wearing her young face, but she looks like she's lived all eighty plus of her years. "Boy, when you get to my age, you'd have lived enough inside you own head to suffice for one lifetime. I may not have much left, but what I do have left, I cherish. And I'd like to see Bobby's son or daughter when they're born – and not too soon, I'll tell you. I've been asking that boy for grandchildren for years, but it was the other two that obliged me, and their children are spoiled little brats. Take that Maria, Joss's eldest. Never a kind word to say to anyone. And you know, I may not have a ring to pass on, but maybe it will be enough that Rob or Roberta junior will have met their old grandma."

Arthur sighs long-sufferingly, and tartly asks Shizuka: "And where do you propose doctors would keep their Walther PPKs?"

"Oh, sweetie," Mrs Ross says, "now I've got the hang of it, you needn't trick me into it," and a normal, compact, new-style revolver (though not any kind Arthur's ever heard of) appears in her hand.

Arthur checks it over, and it even has three bullets. Fully loaded would have been better, but he suppose they aren't planning to need spares.

He tries to stare down Mrs Ross into backing down and staying here, because there's nothing for her on level One, but she's a stubborn old thing and orders: "Just do it, dear."

He does.

* * *

On One, the nothingness boundary has disappeared and been replaced by Mrs Ross's actual neighbour's houses. There are even projections. There's some kids playing in the yard across the street and there are birds chirping in the trees, which are rustling from a previously non-existent wind.

This time, Arthur mutters _here goes nothing_ as he shoots them out.

This is it. Moment of truth.

* * *

Shizuka and Arthur wake up in the care facility, and they're greeted with the unchanged, evenly-spaced beep of Mrs Ross's heart monitor and the smell of hospital mixed with the smell of old people.

Arthur makes himself turn to look at Mrs Ross. Her eyes are still closed and she's still as the grave.

They wait a few moments, but there's no change.

He doesn't look at Shizuka as he balls his hands into frustrated fists.

"She's not ever going to wake up, is she?" Arthur says, voice dead to his own ears.

Shizuka doesn't answer.

"You gave her false hope, you know. You should have just told her it was God's plan or something, that everything was fine, that she was going to be in heaven. Now we don't even know where she is. She might have been happy, if we'd left her on Two."

"Maybe you were right," Shizuka finally says. "Maybe she wasn't really there at all. Our expectations might have created her."

Arthur shakes his head and walks out.

He gets his stuff from his hotel room and goes back home on the first flight out. When Shizuka sends him an email saying the client doesn't want to pay since they didn't get their stupid ring, he doesn't even get mad.

* * *

**end arc, main story tbc**


	13. Part 7 (Interlude)

Once, when Mal was still pregnant with James, she'd taken a photo of Arthur while he listened to Phillipa tell him the story of why her Barbie had broken up with Ken.

When Arthur had first seen the printed photo, he'd hated it. In it, his hair was a mess and the jeans he was wearing had mud splashes up the legs because earlier Philippa had made him play hide and seek outside straight after the rain. Privately, Arthur thought he also looked stupidly engrossed in the drama of Barbieville, but Mal told him it was sweet.

The thing is, the photo had grown on him after a while, as the years passed and Mal and Dom grew distant and caught up in their family. Now, he looks at it and it reminds him that when he's not being a workaholic (work can count as a hobby, right?), he's an actual person. Of course, he knows that, but sometimes he wears the mask so long that he has trouble taking it off. Mal used to remind him, but now she's never got time for him, so this photo will have to do, because she's put her affection for him and her daughter into it, and it will remind him of the softer side Mal sees in him.

* * *

Once, on a job, an architect/forger going by Halden had left a sketch in blue ball-point pen on Arthur's desk.

The drawing was of Arthur – or rather, his back. In it, he's all straight lines and sharp, brittle corners. His elbows are sharp, his shoulders are perfect right angles and even his tired slouch over his work looks posed and fragile.

Halden never said anything to Arthur about it, but Arthur thinks maybe that drawing was meant to be a comment on the fact that Arthur is a cold son of a bitch when he's working. Or that Arthur is strung too tight, that he's going to snap at this rate. Or maybe Halden was just bored and put down some lines on a scrap of paper, who knows.

* * *

Arthur likes the photo better, but he keeps the sketch as a reminder of who he becomes when Mal's not there to show him he's more than that.


	14. Part 8-1

Arthur hadn't even noticed when it had become a Thing for them, but somehow, he and Eames have gotten into the habit of post-job drinks. Not always, sometime they're too busy being shot at to stop for a catch-up, but when everything goes smoothly, it's good to be able to wind down from the adrenalin rush by dissecting the job they'd just done.

Sometimes they talk about more than just the job. Sometimes they talk almost as if they might be friends, or something, but that's just ridiculous. Arthur already has friends, he has Mal, and by extension, he supposes he has Cobb, and that's really enough friends for him, usually. He wouldn't be here, he thinks, only Mal's been distant lately, caught up in her kids and her dream experiments and her part-time teaching position at the local college, and Cobb makes a shitty drinking partner because he gets whiny and clingy after three shots and then someone has to scrape him off the floor and nurse his widdle hangover afterwards, too.

That's the only reason, Arthur tells himself, that he's been spending more non-work time with Eames.

"Crazy people make the best conversation partners." Eames is declaring, maybe a little drunk. "Not the best or most reliable of friends, necessarily, but they are more interesting."

"If you're trying to call me boring," Arthur drawls, "you're rather falling short of insulting. Especially considering you're sitting here talking to me, instead of all these crazy interesting people that must be out there, just waiting for you to sweep them away into your crazy interesting world."

Eames waves a hand irritably. "Don't be so defensive, darling, it's unattractive. You're just as crazy as the rest of us, you just hide it under a mask of obsessive perfection."

"Really?" Arthur raises an eyebrow, wondering where Eames is getting this from. Probably his ass.

"Yes, really. I bet your parents didn't hug you enough as a child."

"Well then, Mr Freud, I see you have me all figured out."

"Oi. I find the comparison to a sexist, drug-addled, oedipal, self-satisfied ponce of a man very insulting." He pauses dramatically and then continues, "… I'll have you know I think very highly of women."

Arthur tries not to laugh. "But you think every mental disturbance comes from childhood and the parents?"

"Not every, no. There's a difference between congenital propensity to crazy and the taught one. The one I'm talking about is the taught one. Almost no one grows up without some sort of weird mental quirk stemming from childhood, of course – be it fear abandonment or the inability to trust. But it all comes back to parents, usually. Or some other childhood authority figure."

"Uh huh." Arthur nods and tries to look absorbed in Eames' bullshit.

"No, seriously. How do you think your boy Cobb landed a stunner like Mallorie?"

Arthur loses the battle with his face and breaks into a grin. "By being exactly like her father, I suppose you're going to say. And I'd have to say you're wrong: they're not that much alike at all, aside from both being architects."

"No, actually," Eames points a finger at him, "I was going to say it's because Cobb was the exact opposite of who her mother wanted for her, and Mal is a contrary little shit."

Arthur shakes his head irritably. "You're making it sound like Cobb's a _thing_ Mal acquired to spite her mother. _I_ think Mal married Cobb because – and here's a crazy thought – she _loves_ him. He's more than just a trophy husband, you know."

"Of course _you_ would defend his numerous qualities." Eames mutters into his drink.

"Sorry, what was that?" Arthur asks, having heard perfectly. "I'd like to state for the record that I have my eyes wide open about Cobb."

"Is _that_ what the kids are calling it these days?" Eames smirks.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing. Just, you know, the rumour mill gets a bit of a work out about you."

Instead of being insulted, as Eames probably expects him to be, Arthur grins. "Oh, this I have to hear."

Eames looks disappointed that Arthur is not acting the least bit caught-out. "it usually goes like this: you and Cobb met on opposite sides of the private/government line in the army, and, star-crossed and desperate, you blackmailed the government into letting you leave the army so that the two of you could be together?"

"Oh my god, really?" Arthur cracks up. "Blackmail? With what, pray tell?"

"Only that the government had incepted Neil Armstrong into thinking he'd _actually_ been to the moon in '69." Eames says in a conspiratorial whisper. "I notice you don't deny the affair bit."

Arthur is still laughing. "That seems like a lot of effort to go to, if they _had_ faked the moon-landing. Wouldn't it be easier to find an 'astronaut' willing to lie about it? There are plenty of morally dubious, talented liars around, after all. Heck, if you'd been old enough, they could have asked _you_."

Eames' grin widens. "You flatterer, you. Oh, and then Mal found out about you screwing around with her husband and tried to poison you."

"Did she, now."

"But _then_ Cobb threatened to leave her so she decided you could be his mistress on the side. Alternatively, you ran away from the army to be with _both_ of the Cobbs, and Mal tried to poison your CO because he had some sort of unrequited thing for you and wanted to keep you for himself when you tried to leave. Possibly the blackmail was also involved."

Arthur nods contemplatively. "Ménage à trois, huh. I must be quite the Casanova to pull the both of them. Anyone think it was just with _Mrs_ Cobb?"

"Nah, that's just boring. With Cobb you have conflict, professional competition and boss/employee dynamics, but I imagine that left to your own devices, rather than having kinky hate-sex, you and Mallorie would go shopping and coo over shoes. There's nothing rumour-worthy about _that_." He looks disgusted with the idea.

"What, no shoe kinks?" Arthur asks plaintively.

Eames gives him a sideways look. "I am both intrigued and disturbed that that occurred to you."

"Any more of my origin stories you'd like to share?"

"Oh, well, there's the one where you were an orphan raised in a village of ninjas – that's why no one can ever sneak up on you. That, or you're part cat."

Arthur snorts. "Not a fan of cats, actually. Selfish little shits, aren't they?"

Eames looks horrified and makes the sign against evil. "Out, heathen! I shan't have you blaspheming against the most sacred of creatures!"

"I should have figured." Arthur rolls his eyes. "Lazy, sense of entitlement, and with the devil's own luck: of course you'd be a cat person."

"That's very unkind of you to say. I was going to say the part-cat thing could work because they're elegant, clever and independent creatures, but I don't think I'll give you the satisfaction of a compliment now."

Arthur snorts. "Dogs are loyal, they can actually be trained to be useful. They've saved hundreds of humans from fires and whatnot. What have cats done?"

Eames pouts and stops to think. "Well, the hosts from _How Not To Decorate_ were woken by their cat when their house caught fire?"

Arthur snorts. "I'm not sure that cat didn't do humanity a great disservice."

Eames swats at him in outrage. "How dare you! You take that back, you-! You just have no appreciation for the finer things in life!"

"You're right," Arthur smirks, "I'm here with you, aren't I?" and tries not to realise that they're actually kind of flirting, and that maybe they've been doing it for some time. It shouldn't be a surprise, really because Eames flirts with almost everyone as a matter of course, but it's different somehow because Eames _knows_ him, sort of, and is still doing it, and obviously not out of what passes for his idea of politeness, anymore. And it's different also because Arthur thinks that maybe he's flirting back a little too.

He flashes back suddenly to the moment he'd seen Eames someone worth noticing, that first job together, when Eames had been brilliant and quick and hadn't even bragged overly much afterwards.

It's still as terrible an idea as it had been that first time, but somehow Arthur thinks maybe he's made and lived through enough terrible decisions that one more can't hurt too badly. He'd blame the alcohol, but he thinks maybe this has been brewing in his head for a while – only of course his scumbag brain couldn't be bothered to inform Arthur til now, could it?

With the luck of the spectacular timing, Arthur is wondering if Eames is actually serious with all his come-ons and this could actually happen when his private phone vibrates in his pocket.

Arthur pulls it out to stare at the screen.

He's distracted and still thinking about Eames and his stupid flirtation before it registers that no one but Mal ever contacts him on his private cell, which Arthur sometimes thinks he doesn't even need to bother with, everyone always calls on his work phone.

It's not Mal, though. It's Dom, who Arthur hadn't even known was in his contacts on this phone, but Mal must have added him when Arthur wasn't looking, and since when does Dom know how to text, anyway?

He takes a sip of his drink as he opens the text with his other hand.

He freezes, drink hovering a few inches from the table top.

_help. its mal. come asap. please._

The world around Arthur is rushing through his ears as he sets down the drink and leaves without a single word.

* * *

He's flagging down a taxi outside before he's even realised he's moved and on the plane back to LA, desperately rolling his loaded die totem (_please let this be a dream_) before he realises that he's left Eames with the bill and without an explanation.

Well. It doesn't matter. Eames can pay for him this once.

It's _Mal_.


	15. Part 8-2

Arthur hasn't let himself think the worst until he gets to the Cobbs' house around dawn and there's a cop car outside. No lights or sirens, but there wouldn't be now, would there. Cobb texted him over ten hours ago.

Inside, Mal's mother is sitting with James in her lap and a hand on Philipa's shoulder in front of the TV. She breaks her rule of ignoring Arthur no matter what by nodding towards the kitchen and Arthur can see she's been crying, silently, so as not to upset the children.

Cobb is talking to a cop in the kitchen. He sounds more and more aggravated as the conversation goes on.

He notices Arthur, finally. "Arthur! Tell them! They think I killed her!"

Arthur lets go and allows himself to sink into the worst, the thing he hadn't let himself believe, till now.

Fucking Cobb. Of course he would send Arthur a text message that failed to say _oh and by the way, your best friend, the person who rescued you from a life of hell, your most important person? is fucking dead._

The cop looks at him expectantly.

Arthur thinks about Mal, his Mal, whom he will never be able tospeak to again because she's fucking _dead_ and here is Cobb making this all about himself, once a-fucking-gain.

"Well, did you?" Arthur sharply demands instead of answering the question and he's suddenly drained of everything, even of caring how it sounds to the policewoman.

Cobb flinches back like Arthur has slapped him in the face.

"Did I…" he trails off. "Did I ever contemplate hurting my fucking _wife_, is that what you're asking?"

"Sir, these questions are routine." The policewoman tries to interject, even though Cobb clearly wasn't addressing her. "A tragic number of deaths are caused by a person known to the victim. Most commonly the partner. We're just trying to get to the bottom of this, I assure you."

The anger drains out of Arthur.

"I'm sorry." He mumbles listlessly at Cobb, but can tell the damage has been done. "I didn't mean that." He turns to address the cop. "He wouldn't, really. I'm just- I don't even know what I am. Excuse me."

He walks out of the kitchen and tries to go into the bathroom only a policeman is washing his hands in the sink and Arthur turns around with a mumbled _sorry_ and goes to Mal and Dom's en suite instead.

He rolls his totem die (_three, three, always three_) and splashes water on his face because he hasn't had any real sleep in around 30 hours, and is probably not going to get any anytime soon, either. He stares in the mirror until his own face stops meaning anything to him.

He drifts away for a moment, like he used to do as a kid, and he's not Arthur anymore, he's not a he, he's not anything – there's just the universe and this tiny speck of an observation point right here that one might call a body, and the universe is vast and unforgiving and for a moment it doesn't matter that this tiny observation point has just lost his best friend.

His eyes stray over to the fake flowers on the window sill that he'd given Mal as a gag gift one New Years and he snaps back into himself.

She's dead. Mal's _dead_.

The red die on the sink is still staring _three_ at him.

He slips involuntarily down to the cold bathroom floor and sobs.


	16. Part 8-3

Eventually Arthur realises that the world doesn't revolve around him, that Cobb has just lost his wife and is being subtly accused of her murder, that the kids have lost their mom, that Professor and Mrs Miles have lost their baby girl.

He tries to pull himself together. He's fallen apart, okay, but he can glue the pieces back together, or at least collect them and hold them together until someone can find him some metaphorical fucking glue.

He helps Mrs Miles look after the kids while Cobb falls apart. He makes phone calls, plans the funeral, calls Mal's friends, of whom there were many because Mal could befriend a _dragon_ if she tried.

He reminds Cobb to eat – and the joke of it isn't lost on him, that Mal bound him to this duty years ago when she was pregnant with Phillipa and made him promise. He remembers her serious face when she'd asked, knuckles white with fear and pain, and he laughs until he cries at how wrong she was to fear, back then.

He does his fucking duty, because he owes her that, if nothing else, because he wasn't there when she needed him most, so she fucking jumped out of a hotel window and Cobb can't or won't even tell him _why_.

Arthur's failed her, and trying to deal with the fallout is the least he can do.

* * *

After the funeral, the cops officially issue Cobb with a caution that he is now under investigation. Arthur finds him a lawyer.

A few days later, Cobb gets wind of an arrest warrant, freaks the fuck out and skips town.

When he hears, Arthur presses his forehead into a wall and tries to fight the urge to beat his head against it until the world makes sense again. His totem is going to get worn down into nothing at the rate he keeps fiddling with it.

There's nothing for it, though, but to track Cobb the hell down and to punch him (repeatedly) for not inviting Arthur along.

They might both be broken, and they kind of might be angry at each other and the world, but at least they can be broken and angry together.


	17. Part 9-1

It's three months after Mal, and Arthur's in Kuala Lumpur on a job and hasn't slept more than an hour or two in three days when he bumps into Eames. Well, he uses 'bumps into', but that's being overly generous because Eames is just a stalking stalker who stalks. And a meddler.

He doesn't bother to ask how Eames found him. It doesn't matter, anyway.

"What do you want?" He only says, tiredly, when Eames approaches him in the grocery store he's been sent to to get food supplies.

Eames has the audacity to try to look surprised. "Why, fancy meeting you here, Arthur."

Arthur fixes him with a look that he'd like to think reads: _I do not have the time or patience for your shit, right now._

Eames, being a dickhead, purposefully misinterprets the look as: _please, tell me more of this story you're fabricating as we speak._

"Oh, I was in the area, heard you were around, thought I'd drop in, say hi, that sort of thing."

"Well, hi." Arthur says shortly.

Eames follows Arthur as he walks over to the refrigerated section.

"I was sorry to hear about Mallorie." Eames says suddenly, after Arthur's almost forgotten his presence. (And that should be more worrying than it is, that his brain doesn't consider him enough of a threat to keep tabs on.) "I only heard last month, or I would have gone to the funeral."

Arthur's hands clench around the handle of the shopping basket. "I should have said." He blurts out. "You know, before. I just- I didn't-"

Eames interrupts. "It's fine."

Arthur swallows. "Still, I'm sorry I didn't say anything."

"Don't worry about it." Eames shrugs. "Good to see you're doing okay. You know, relatively speaking." Eames half-smiles at him, but it's awkward and forced.

Arthur turns away.

"So, what are you kids up to, anyway? Need any help? I'm currently between jobs, could use the entertainment."

Arthur looks at him sharply. "Since when do you need to go begging for work?"

He gets a shrug in response. "I'm not begging. It's just, I'm here, you're here, you've got a job and I'm bored."

"You're a terrible liar, Mr Eames." Arthur snorts, only that's not even remotely true, is it? Only Arthur knows he's being lied to right now, and it's like Eames isn't even trying.

"So, I wanted to check you were alright. I know the two of you were close. I know Cobb's been accused of murdering her. I know you've stuck to Cobb like glue. I, personally, belong to the 'dig two graves' school of thought on vengeance, but if you'll accept my help, I'll give it."

Arthur flinches back. "What? You think I'm luring Cobb into a false sense of security so I can, what, _kill_ him?"

Eames sighs. "Arthur, darling, if I knew _what_ was going on inside your head, I could retire from the criminal world and make my living as a TV Psychic."

"I'm not going to kill Cobb!" Arthur exclaims, aghast. "They have _children_, for goodness' sake. And he didn't kill Mal, he wouldn't ever hurt her!"

"Maybe not intentionally." Eames says in a lower voice. "But he gets a bit too wrapped up in the puzzle, sometimes, to think about how his actions will affect actual people."

Arthur tries not to think about the fact that the last time he spoke to Mal, she was messing about with dreams. Tries not to think about the fact that she _promised_ to be careful, and she wasn't stupid, she wouldn't do anything really risky. Cobb hasn't really spoken about what happened with Mal, and Arthur tries not to make baseless assumptions – but they aren't exactly baseless, are they?

It's kind of ironic, actually, that Mal and Cobb were brought in to prevent another Private Satori or Corporal Williams happening, and then, years later, Mal decides for no apparent reason to take a swan dive out of a window. She, of all people, should have known better: she invented totems, for fuck's sake. But something happened, it must have, and Cobb can't or won't tell him anything and here's Arthur trying not to think about it at all because it still hurts too much.

"Are you suggesting that Cobb did something to fuck up Mal's head?"

Eames shrugs helplessly. "I'm not saying that's what happened, but I'm saying it's a possibility that he accidentally contributed somehow to her untimely demise, yes."

Arthur breathes out and tries not to think _if only I had been there_ because he _knows_ he's not psychic, nor all-powerful, he _knows_ he shouldn't put the burden of protecting everyone he cares about 24/7 onto himself, but he can't always control what his brain does, and it's too easy to slip into the egocentric view that everything that happens is a result of his own action or inaction.

"Well." He finally responds. "If that is, in fact, what happened, then, Mr Eames, I don't know how they do this in England, but in the US, murder is the _intentional_ causation of death. No _mens rea_, no culpability."

Eames snorts. "And you follow the law, do you?"

"I do when it makes sense." Arthur points out. "So to answer your earlier question, no, I don't intend to take any sort of vengeance on a man who's already lost everything."

Eames shakes his head slowly. "Okay. Well, that's good. I wasn't actually keen on helping you commit an indictable offence, anyway. Well, this particular one, at least."

Arthur decides to take his basket to the checkout before an English-speaker gets them arrested for conspiracy to murder. They have the death penalty available in Malaysia, after all.

* * *

Eames walks back with him as far as the small hotel Arthur and Cobb are staying at.

"You give me a yell if you need anyone extra for a job, yeah?" he says, and gives back his half of the shopping bags he'd insisted on carrying. "No need to tell Cobb about our little encounter, you know, just in case you change your mind about the vengeance thing."

Arthur would point out that Cobb probably knew the second Eames set foot in the country, but that's probably not true anymore. It's doubtful Cobb knows what country they're in.

"Yeah. I'll let you know." He says, and awkwardly waves with a semi-free hand as he heads inside to reception. Inside the lift, he turns back around and can see Eames through the glass, still outside.

He's not sure whether to be pissed off that Eames is apparently now stalking him, probably for what he thinks is Arthur's own good, or touched.

_Yeah, touched in the __**head**_, Arthur snorts to himself.


	18. Part 9-2

A year after Mal, and nothing's improved for either Arthur or Cobb.

They've had a few near misses with the fake IDs, and Arthur determinedly does not call Eames, even though Eames knows all the best real-life forgers, and is probably one himself (_never admit to anything that can be used against me in a court of law, darling, that's my motto_, never mind that last time his motto was _que sera sera_, and before that it was _live like there's no tomorrow_).

But they get decent passports eventually and life moves on, only not for Cobb.

Arthur, when he's being honest with himself (usually only after a bottle of something) will admit that he's not exactly the poster boy for dealing with grief, either, but at least he's not going down into his own brain to talk to his dead wife, unlike some people.

Cobb is spiralling out of control, and Arthur suspects that he may be dragged down as collateral, but he doesn't exactly have anywhere else to be, and anyway, he _promised_, and now he's going to look after Cobb, teethe grited but marching forwards, even if it kills him.

There are a few times it almost does.

Cobb doesn't always vet the people they work with very well. Arthur tries his best to do it himself, but sometimes Cobb just walks in with a new forger or architect and plugs them right in, no warning, no consultation, no nothing.

Cobb can't even build anymore – not after that one memorable occasion when Mal's projections ripped apart every member of their team piece by agonising piece before finally shooting Dom in the head and collapsing the dream. And that means they always need at least a third member, since Arthur's not altogether that confident with building on a full-time basis, and anyway, his skills are needed elsewhere, namely keeping Cobb alive and sane.

The jobs they take aren't much to write home about, either.

There used to be a time when Arthur could think of himself as at least a high-class criminal, stealing from the desperately rich and… well, putting it all in his own multitude of bank accounts, but better that than up his nose, right? Now the jobs people are willing to hire someone on the run for are much worse, and they've been relegated to the level of snooping on cheating spouses many a time. Some jobs don't even involve dream-share, anymore, sometimes they're just plain criminals slash PIs.

Arthur doesn't dare dream of the days when he could honestly say that he enjoyed his job.

* * *

There's a job where Arthur makes the mistake of thinking Eames is over whatever over-protective thing he had going on that time in Malaysia, and actually invites him along because he's sick of Cobb bringing in inadequate, washed-out losers.

He realises it's a mistake as soon as Eames takes a look at Cobb and the bags under his eyes, turns and looks at Arthur (and yeah, okay, maybe Arthur hasn't been real-sleeping much either) and he only raises an eyebrow, but Arthur knows that this is going to be a Thing, now.

He's not wrong, because Eames waits patiently til the conclusion of the job to corner him.

"Arthur, you need to walk away from this."

Arthur hasn't the patience to play dumb. "It's none of your business who I work with."

"He's a ticking bomb! And he'll take anyone in the blast radius with him, and you, darling, couldn't be any closer if you tried."

There's a moment when Arthur seriously considers punching Eames in his stupid, patronizing face. He's not even sure why he's so angry, but suspects it's because Eames is a hundred percent right. What Eames doesn't realise, though, is that being right about Dom doesn't actually change anything, not for Arthur. You don't just walk away.

"I've been taking care of myself a very long time, Eames, I think I can keep doing that perfectly well without your input." He replies, cold.

"Look, I know you've known them a long time, and I know there's something to the rumours that Mal got you out of being recalled to the military, but just because you're grateful to the Cobbs, doesn't mean you need to throw your life away!"

Arthur shivers and thinks of Mal saying roughly the same thing to him, once.

"My life, Eames – not yours." Arthur replies tiredly and makes a mental note not to call him again for a job. "Mine to 'throw away' if I like."

Eames shakes his head and walks away. He doesn't try to contact Arthur again.

* * *

The next time Arthur lets himself actively think about Eames (and he doesn't keep tabs on him, really, only Eames rather likes to make a splash and anyway, Eames is bloody predictable, so yeah, Arthur usually knows where to find him) is after Mr Saito has semi-forced them into trying the unthinkable and Dom finally admits that they need a better crew than fricking _Nash_.

"We don't just need a thief," Cobb says, suddenly fucking _glowing_ at the (probably false) hope of seeing his kids again, "we need a _forger_."

And Arthur doesn't groan because that's unprofessional, but it's a close call because Cobb is the reason Eames probably isn't going to talk to either of them now and the only hope they have is Eames' professional curiosity and the lure of an attempt at inception.


	19. Part 10-1

The thing is; he feels bad about the girl.

Ariadne is a bright young thing, destined for great things, only Cobb's probably not the best person for her to be around, not right now, while she's still impressionable and young. Arthur understands perfectly that Cobb is a tugging vortex of crazy, thank you very much; it's just that he also accepts it's too late for him and that people who try to 'open his eyes' to it should mind their own business.

But for all that Arthur feels bad about dragging her into this mess, he also realises that it's the only way out for him and Cobb, and that he has become cynical enough that he's going to let her follow them down the rabbit hole. He tries to watch over her as best he can – that's his compromise – but he knows that realistically, he won't always be around to stop her or Cobb doing something irreparably stupid.

* * *

Somehow, Cobb actually gets Eames to join them.

Arthur would be impressed, after the way they (okay, _he_) left things, but in a world of criminals, surely Eames has learnt to make like a duck and let all that shit just roll of his back. Plus, they're attempting every extractor's secret dream – and Arthur's heard rumours that Eames has been chasing this particular rainbow a while. There's no way he can resist this job, even if the people in it with him aren't exactly Eames' first choice.

"Arthur." Is all Eames grants him on arrival, slight nod of the head the only thing to indicate he's actually addressing Arthur and not listing names out at random.

_Oh_. Arthur thinks. Still angry, then. Or, not angry, but there's a chilliness to him that hadn't been there two years ago. A chilliness reserved for Arthur, it seems, because Eames is charming and politely flirty towards the architect and even mostly civil to _Cobb_, of all people, whom Eames had never exactly been BFFs with. He's also carelessly friendly and teasing to their new chemist, whom Cobb also brought back from Kenya, and Arthur has to fight the urge to resent the new guy for it. It doesn't make any sense, but it feels almost like Eames is shoving in to his face, that he's going to talk to everyone but Arthur.

He tries to be polite – friendly, even – tries to apologise without giving up ground because he wasn't _wrong_, he just could have been nicer about not being wrong because it's not like Eames didn't have the best intentions; only Eames is a stubborn piece of shit at the best of times, and when he makes it a point to hold a grudge, he really fucking holds a grudge.

Arthur would give up and leave Eames to his own devices, but he can be stubborn too, and the only person who's ever been able to out-stubborn him is Mal (and there will be a time when her mere name doesn't hurt, but it's not just yet) and she's not bloody here, is she?

* * *

There're a couple of moments, when Eames is at his most snarky – shamelessly baiting for a reaction – when Arthur almost cracks, almost screams at him, at Cobb, at Saito, at the world, but he holds himself together, and it gets easier each time.

In his darker moments, Arthur compares Eames to a contagious disease, maybe mono. He had mono once, as a teenager, it was awful. But now that he's on the other side of it, his system at least knows how to fight it.

* * *

It's nice, though, to work with competent people again.

Ariadne might be new, but she's whip-smart and her learning curve makes Arthur feel slow and stupid. Arthur can see why Professor Miles liked her, and why Cobb did too: she's got that spark of fire, that thing that Mal had, that made her more than just a smart gorgeous woman and rather, something amazing. Ariadne's not quite done yet, as a person; she's still learning and growing, but she's really going to be something one day and Arthur thinks it's a pity Mal never got to meet her.

Yusuf, for all that he's friends with Eames (and some ridiculous and completely unjustified part of Arthur is suspicious that it's more, because there's a grin Eames gets around Yusuf, sometimes, and it's his _I've got a dirty secret_ grin), is professional and polite to Arthur. He seems to know what he's doing, and the chemical side of dreaming hasn't ever been Arthur's thing, so he attempts to let go of the crazy control-freak part of him that doesn't trust others enough to delegate, and tries to trust Cobb and Eames' appraisal of Yusuf.

Eames, as always, play-acts unprofessionalism, but when it comes down to it, even in the practice runs, he's serious and focused, and even deigns to help Arthur learn the layout for the second level. He's still not friendly, but during those sessions, at least no one else is around for him to insult or ignore Arthur in front of, so he manages polite. It's not the easy camaraderie they had before, but maybe it's something.

* * *

It's good. The job is going smoothly enough, the team knows what they're doing, Arthur finally starts believing that maybe this thing is more than just a crazy rich man's way of throwing money away, and that maybe they can do this.

Then Maurice Fischer dies and they have to fast-track everything by _weeks_.

Arthur swears and gets on a plane to Australia. Where they have spiders that eat birds and live for up to thirty years, as Eames has been kind enough to inform him, in great detail and with pictures, too.

* * *

It only goes downhill from there because Fischer is militarised and Arthur's fucking mystified as to how that got past him (he'd checked, he always checks, he runs a credit history to look for any suspicious large outgoing payments in the last decade, he checks in with his contacts, the people who always have a finger on the pulse of the dreamshare world, he searches thousands of emails and computer files for any words that might suggest even an awareness of the existence of dream-crime) and, oh, by the way, they die in the dream, they're fucked in real life, Cobb bothers to inform them.

It's a double mistake, one or the other and they'd be safe, but the two together, and they're fucked. On Arthur's part, it's not searching deep enough (but he _had_, or he'd thought he had. Has he really sunk to the level where he misses something this big?) and on Cobb and Yusuf's part for fucking sedating them without bloody saying anything.

For once Arthur, despite being busy questioning his research methods, agrees fully with Eames' feelings about Cobb. It's not the first time Cobb's risked Arthur on a job, but it's the first time it's come out of nowhere like this, and it's the first time there are people whose continued survival Arthur actually gives a shit about involved.

"You had no right!" He yells at Cobb and can see exactly the second that it fails to register in Cobb's eyes, when he fails to understand that he's actually done something wrong.

To Cobb, the unspoken rules he's just broken and then pissed all over are as meaningless and optional as the laws they break every day. To Cobb, this is just a bit of creative tax accounting or going 5 mph over the limit – technically wrong, but mostly, completely socially acceptable.

He'll fucking finish this job, because he's signed on for it, and because Cobb is right, Fischer's mind will rip them to pieces, but he silently promises himself that after this, he is fucking done.

Done with Cobb, done with dreamshare. Well. Probably just Cobb, because it's not like Arthur's exactly got many career options left, but at the very least, he is going to take a good long break from all this shit, from dealing with Cobb's grief, and try to fucking deal with his own.

He's tried, with Cobb, he really has, and even Mal can't possibly fault him at this point. He's done his darnedest, and anyway, if this damn job works, Cobb might actually get to go home, and then Arthur can leave him there with a free conscience because Cobb probably won't eat a bullet while his kids are in the room next door, which is more than Arthur can say for his own presence as far a suicide deterrents go.

_This is the last time_, he keeps repeating to himself as projections shoot at them, _just get through this job, and it can be over._

In all the fuss about potentially ending up as vegetables, Eames seems to have forgotten all about being angry with Arthur, and when he very sincerely warns Arthur to be careful all alone on Two, without the recent addition of the _because you obviously can't handle yourself_ undercurrent, Arthur actually almost smiles at him, because their lives might be on the line, and they might all be stressed to hell, but underneath all that bullshit, Eames is after all a decent human being, and sometimes Arthur forgets those exist.

It's nice to be reminded.

* * *

**Notes:** Didn't want to dwell too long on the movie, because undoubtedly we've all seen it, and what's the point in re-writing it word for word, anyway, so I may have been a bit brisk in moving on. Hope the story flow still worked properly.

I should (subject to RL interruptions and to Guild Wars marathons) have the rest of the Fischer arc up sometime this week.


	20. Part 10-2

**Notes:** GAIZ, high school physics was a long time ago, please excuse any boo-boos.

* * *

There's a brief moment of quiet after the rest of the team has gone under, down to level Three.

Arthur checks everyone's lines, and braces himself for the next part. It's not just him on the line here, like it would have been back on the first level – here, if he dies, he drops to limbo, but Two will also collapse without him and will take the dreamers with it.

He walks away from the room with the team to draw the projections away. He, at least, can fight back, and he's the one Security will be after, anyway.

He doesn't have to wait long.

* * *

There's often a moment – the times that Arthur allows himself to build up the apprehension – when he's afraid that he's not going to be able to pull it off this time. That this time, the enemy will be better or faster than him. It definitely doesn't help that his life is actually on the line.

But then the first projection tries to grab him, Arthur's muscle memory kicks in, and he's not worrying anymore, he's not thinking about the future, he's just in the now, in the motion, in the fluidity of the dance he's been playing a very long time. The crunch of bone and cartilage is as satisfying as ever, and it feels almost like meditation, the zone he slips into like this.

Only then he has to snap out of autopilotmode, because the fucking hallway tips and turns, and fuck inner ear function, anyway, and fuck Yusuf for screwing yet another thing up and obviously not being able to handle driving up on One.

He gets his bearings quickly though, and manages to take out the second projection just as the world stops spinning.

Arthur takes a moment to regain his focus and heads off into the maze of a hotel Ariadne's designed him, ready for rounds two, three, four – as many as it takes. He can do this.

He repeats it like a mantra, _I can do this,_ and is still doing it when the next jolt from up on One hits him – only this time it's not gravity merely going haywire, this time it's gravity taking a _holiday_, and fucking Yusuf must be ahead of schedule. Seriously, Arthur did not sign on for this shit.

The predicament only becomes even more prominent when he swims his way back to the room with the sleepers and realises that he can't drop them.

Fuck.

His mind blanks with panic. Times like these are when he doesn't just miss Mal, times like this, he _needs_ her – this, thinking on the spot, being creative, it's not him. Planning meticulously in advance, that he can do, but improvisation? Not unless there's guns or killing involved, then he can be creative as hell.

_Think_, Arthur tells himself,_ what would Mal do? _Or even, he admits ruefully, _what would Eames do?_

Bizarrely, Arthur's mind replies with: _if Eames couldn't go to the mountain, he would trick it into coming to him_.

Not helpful. _Think_. Well, if the metaphorical mountain is gravity, or at least, something that the sleeper's inner ear function would recognise and wake them the fuck up from, then Arthur needs to invent himself a mountain, only he's floundering in an ocean and doesn't know how to swim.

It's his dream, he can dream himself up anything he needs, but he's already got the explosives, and gravity is pull while explosions are push, but they're both an outside force, and exactly what he needs right now.

All he needs is to recreate a similar force to jolt the sleepers awake. But an explosion in zero G won't do because it would need to be big enough and close enough to have enough of an effect, but anything that big and close would probably kill the sleepers.

He could always wait for the timer on the PASIV to run out, but it's got a couple hours left on it, and who knows what could happen down on Three in the several days that translates to there? And even assuming the team survive all that time on Three and wake up naturally on Two, they'd still have missed the second kick back to One, which, by the way, is due in a few minutes, only Arthur can't think straight.

They need to be protected from the explosion, but at the same time, the force from the explosion can't be allowed to dissipate into three dimensions. How do you channel a force as uncontrollable as an explosion?

Arthur stares at the pistol in his hand and tries not to imagine a similar gun being used to kill him or the sleepers when he fails.

_Amazing things, guns_, Arthur thinks absently. The first time he's fired one was almost eleven years ago now, and a year later, he'd aimed a gun at another human being and pulled the trigger. Three further years, and he'd killed and been killed for the first time in dreamscape. Such a tiny thing, a bullet, and it's really the bullet that's the dangerous thing, not the gun, because the bullet is the thing that contains the gunpowder, an amount is barely enough to give you a nasty burn by itself, but when you put a bullet in a narrow chamber, and the gunpowder ignites in a closed space, the only way for the bullet to go is out, out of the gun's barrel and into fragile flesh and blood at speeds exceeding a thousand miles per hour.

Arthur looks at the C4 floating in front of him and then back at the gun he's holding.

The elevator out in the hallway dings.

* * *

Arthur pushes himself over to the doorway to shoot the projections as they disembark elevator and then dreams himself up some ropes. He can fucking do this. He can. He has to.

* * *

He doesn't see if his improvised kick works on Two, but up on One, Fischer is alive enough to drag Eames out with him, and Ariadne is fine too, and Arthur turns to Cobb, because there's dread in his stomach and he knows that if anyone was going to do something stupid, it would be Cobb, and Cobbs not waking up.

Ariadne doesn't seem surprised, and merely pulls Arthur away.

Arthur tries to scream all the rage and frustration under water but his mouth fills with water.

Ariadne seems optimistic, when they've clambered their way to shore, but what would she know? She's just a kid. A brilliant, promising kid, but she doesn't know Cobb like Arthur does, she wasn't there, she hasn't been in the wars with them, she hasn't seen Cobb staring longingly at his gun.

Fucking Cobb. Of course he'd fuck everything up for everyone and then take the martyr's way out so that Arthur can't even curse at him. Of fucking course.

* * *

They spend the rest of the week on One trying to stay out of the way of Fischer's suddenly passive projections. That's more proof than even Eames' say so that the inception has taken, because Fischer himself walks around his life in a daze, and even the memory of the kidnapping seems to slip away after a bit.

There's a moment when Arthur wants desperately to apologise to Eames, about Cobb, about everything, but Eames makes himself scarce by following Fischer around in his Browning skin-suit and so Arthur plays cards with Ariadne instead. He teaches her to cheat, and how to detect when Eames is cheating, with the vague hope that she'll use her puppy dog eyes on him up top and trick him into a card game.

Arthur figures it's something, since Eames is intent on not letting him apologise properly.

Yusuf, no one is speaking to, because he has to pay penance somehow, and apparently that means he gets to spend a week bored out of his mind.

At the end of the week, Eames comes to find them, literally dragging a wary looking Yusuf behind him.

"The song is on." Yusuf says carefully.

Eames looks grim. "Well, ladies and gentlemen. If we all get arrested, I just wanted you to know that it's been a pleasure."

He's addressing both Arthur and Ariadne, but it's Arthur he's looking at, and there's no anger or resentment in his eyes, only a guarded sort of expectation.

Ariadne steps close and hugs Eames, who looks a little shocked despite the fact that he's been persistently hitting on her on and off the last few months. She murmurs something to him that Arthur doesn't hear.

Next she turns to Arthur, but she only grins at him and says "You already stole yours, you sneak – stop looking expectant."

Arthur blinks because for a second he hears her in Mal's voice.

"The kiss? That was forever ago!" Eames chimes in with a wink at Arthur. "Give the poor boy something to remember you by when he's ruling the American prison system from within."

Arthur hadn't even realised Eames had seen. He feels his face heat up.

"Should I be flattered or concerned that you've given thought to how well I would do in prison?"

Eames grins. "Don't worry, darling, I won't warn anyone in advance that you can kill a man with a single matchstick."

Arthur doesn't roll his eyes, but only because that's when Yusuf warns: "Ten seconds."

Arthur sticks his hand out to Eames to shake, and Eames takes it.

Eames is still looking right at him when the dream falls away.

* * *

Up top, Cobb and Saito are the last to wake. For all that he's supposed to be mad at Cobb, he can't help but be so fucking relieved he could laugh.

The last time he sees Cobb at the baggage collection in LAX, Cobb is alive like Arthur hasn't seen in years.

Some small part of him thinks that maybe this, everything, was almost worth it. He can tell just by looking that Cobb won't be plagued by Mal's shade anymore, but it won't matter anyway because now Cobb is going back to his kids and probably (if he knows what's good for him), will never dream again.

And Arthur, Arthur has done his duty, has seen Cobb through, and now he can imagine that Mal is releasing her hold on him, too.

* * *

After Cobb's walked away, Eames catches his eye and mimes drinking. A job this risky, and they really all ought to split up and run, but Arthur wants to take a risk, feels like he can take on the world right now.

Smiling, he follows.


	21. Part 11-1

It's surprising, how easily Arthur and Eames slip back into the easy banter that they'd had before. There's still a hint of fragility to their conversation, but it eases away after a few drinks.

Arthur still feels like he's on top of the world, and that probably helps to not make him so defensive or on edge.

The thing is, after Mal, Arthur had forgotten the rush, the thrill, the high of a job well done. For all the fuck-ups along the way, the Fischer job had, against all odds, ended well enough; it had been nerve-racking, challenging, terrifying, _amazing_. He hasn't enjoyed work in a long time, and hasn't been challenged in any way other than grim endurance in what seems like forever.

Now that he's worked with Ariadne's designs, he's seen brilliance, fresh unbroken genius; he's felt the clarity and the solidity of a dream built under Yusuf's compound; he's seen once again how seamlessly Eames slips into a completely different identity, how clever and inventive he can be when he thinks no one's watching him drop the mask of the joker.

And the thing is, Arthur's free now, free to work again with people like these, or free to go somewhere completely different – hell, he could go get a normal, nine-to-five job if he wanted. He _doesn't_ want, he thinks, but the option is _there_, and it's fucking amazing, to be standing on the edge of the rest of his life, free to be anything at all.

He thinks he intends to get back into dreamshare, after a break. He also thinks he needs to make sure that a mistake like with Fischer never happens again, or if it does, that he's prepared to deal with the effects.

Eames is telling a story that Arthur is only half listening to. "-and then he hands me a cat and a gun, and honestly – how do you respond to that?"

Arthur grins and takes a drink from his glass. "Eames."

"Yes, O delight of my eyes?"

Arthur rolls his eyes. "You know, when you have some time, you should teach me to forge."

Eames drops the smile and blinks at him in confusion. "Say what now? Forgery? You mean… documents, art, etc?"

"No, the dream kind." Arthur replies patiently.

"What? _Why?_" Eames asks, bewildered.

Arthur shrugs. "I don't know. This job, if nothing else, has reiterated the importance of versatility and of always having an ace up your sleeve. So to speak." He nods pointedly at where Eames is blatantly cheating at their card game.

Eames distractedly waves him away, _no cheating here, no siree_. "There's no way in _hell_ you of all people could forge! You're the most set-in-your-skin person I have ever met. If you were reincarnated as an _elephant_, I could still tell it was you."

"An elephant." Arthur repeats, wondering exactly how many drinks Eames has had.

"Yes, what do you have against elephants?" Eames asks, gesturing wildly.

The corner of Arthur's mouth is fighting its way into a smile. "Nothing, they're lovely. I just thought you preferred cats."

"Yeah, those too." Eames says absently, allowing himself to drift off on a tangent. "And lizards, they're fantastic. But not goats. Goats are evil." He shudders theatrically.

"_Goats_." Arthur nods indulgently, and wonders if somebody is filming this conversation for some awful reality TV show.

Eames nods emphatically. "Vessels of Satan, you know. It's why Mr Tumnus betrayed Lucy in the first instance - he was part goat, couldn't help it: it was in his nature."

"Aside from your bizarre hatred of goats," Arthur drags him back to the topic at hand, "is there any real reason you can't at least _try_ to teach me the very basic idea of forgery? I can pay you for your time."

Eames snorts. "Sure, you put a portion of your pile of newly acquired riches in with my pile of newly acquired riches – I'm sure my life will be affected enormously."

"Well then, at least I won't be dragging you away from your livelihood, will I? Come on, you're passing up an opportunity to tell me how unimaginative and un-teachable and just generally hopeless I am!"

"Psah!" Eames waves a hand. "I can do that any old time."

Arthur sighs. "Fine. What do you want?"

Eames watches him silently for a moment. "I don't know. I'll let you know. You can owe me one."

Arthur shrugs, suspecting he's going to regret this later, and decides to quit while he's ahead.


	22. Part 11-2

**Notes:** not sure if the family reunion really has a place here, but i wanted to write it, so there. my fic, my rules.

* * *

A week later, and he's on an island in the Caribbean, trying desperately not to get irritated at the screaming teenage tourists who've just run past him and kicked up sand into his face.

Arthur would like to think that all the people who've called him an anal, obsessive workaholic and a heartless machine are wrong, but the thing is, two days into his 'holiday' (that he's stubbornly intent upon enjoying the crap out of it) and he's slowly going mad.

He is starting to regret his decision to spite Eames after Eames had snorted: Y_ou? On __**holiday**__? The only non-work related trip I can picture you on is in Switzerland for a conference on effective time management, somehow._

When a Frisbee misses Arthur's face by mere centimetres, he decides to give up on the beach and angrily heads off to find somewhere with shade and sand-free drinks.

* * *

On the seventh day, Arthur gives up altogether (it's not really giving up: a week is plenty long enough for a holiday) and books a flight back to the US. He'd rather go see Cobb's kids now anyway, since Dom has had them all to himself for long enough, so now Arthur is allowed to show up and bring them sensible, education gifts that Cobb will approve of (only to later give them noise musical instruments because Arthur intents to pay Cobb back, with compound interest, for every hour of sleep Arthur ever lost because of him).

In LA, Arthur only gets emotional once, when James finds a pair of Mal's heels and stumbles around in them, yelling to his sister _I'm Mommy now, you have to listen to what I say!_

Cobb seems much better. He's still off with the fairies a lot, but he remembers to eat and to feed the children, and sometimes Mrs Miles even leaves him alone with the kids for a few days at a time. She's thinking of buying the townhouse down the street, because while the kids adore grandma, she wants her own space sometimes, and Arthur suspects Cobb isn't too pleased to be sharing with his mother-in law, either. Professor Miles skypes the children most days, but suspiciously gets disconnected a lot whenever Dom wanders in. Arthur speaks to Miles once, and hears that Ariadne is back at school and doing alright, but Miles still hasn't forgiven Cobb for taking her under for the job. Ariadne doesn't seem to have told him about the sedation and militarisation yet, either and Arthur decides it's not his place to say anything.

He spends only a week at the Cobbs' house before Dom awkwardly asks him to get a hotel room, or, you know, go back to his _own_ place_,_ a mere twenty minutes away. Arthur doesn't explain that he'd sold his apartment two years ago when it became clear that being on the run was rather an expensive endeavour. He also politely refrains from talking about the time the year before last when they could only afford a tiny single bed room and Arthur had gallantly given the bed to Cobb because Cob had just lost his wife and because Arthur is a fucking lovely human being like that.

He does think about buying another place near the Cobbs', but realises it's easier just to get a hotel anytime he's in town, because then someone will clean up after him and he doesn't have to worry about paying council tax or insurance or whatever. He's going to visit LA sometimes, but he doesn't want to be tied down here. It used to be his home base, but now he thinks if he gets another at all, he'd like for it to be far, far away.

* * *

He visits his youngest sister next. Jessie still lives in their home town, but Arthur doesn't make the stop by his mother's house, either. He's not ready to deal with her yet. He's not sure he ever will be.

Jessie nearly drops the screaming baby she's holding when she opens the door on Arthur's face. "Oh my god."

"Hi." He says, feeling like an idiot.

She shakes her head and lets him in.

Once she's set down the baby into a high chair in the kitchen, she punches him in the arm. "That's for dropping off the face of the earth, you bastard!"

"Ow! I'm sorry!" Arthur glances at the red-faced baby, who is wearing a purple headband with a bow on it, despite not actually having much in the way of hair. "I thought you had a boy?"

Jessie punches him again, in the same spot because she's evil like that. "That was almost eight years ago! Michael's all grown up now, he's at _school_, you moron. Izzy, meet your idiot zombie uncle!"

The baby gurgles at Arthur, all screaming forgotten. "Hi." He says to the baby, feeling lame.

He looks at his sister, and she's no longer the kid he remembers from his teen-hood, nor is she even the same person who'd emailed him pictures of her family, apparently eight years ago (has it really been that long?). She must be about twenty six, now. Arthur's struck with regret that he hasn't even met her other kid.

Jess puts the kettle on and holds up a box of tea and some instant coffee. Arthur tries not to shudder at the brand of the coffee and waves at the tea as he sits down at the table.

"So, were you posted on the _moon_, that you couldn't call or write? I tried calling the recruiting office you'd signed up at, and they wouldn't tell us anything! They wouldn't even confirm you were _alive_." Her voice cracks at the end and she turns away to face the sink instead.

"I'm sorry. It's been hectic the last few years, but I should have… emailed or something."

She doesn't say anything, but her shoulders hitch as she braches herself on the kitchen counter. She busies herself with the dishes, noise loud enough to cover the sounds if she's crying. Arthur doesn't ask.

"It's just-" she starts, and she's still facing away, and her voice sounds raw, "I really had thought you might be _dead_, Artie, and that we'd never even know. Can you imagine what that's like?"

Arthur doesn't respond, because she's not waiting for him to.

Jess finally turns around, and yeah, her eyes are red and puffy. "Rachel acted like she wasn't worried – you know how she is, but she _was_. She's finally been with the same guy for more than a month, which you would know if you'd ever bothered to stay in touch, and she's turned him down every time he's proposed because she says she's not ready, but you know what I think? I think she couldn't bear to get married without her big brother there!"

Arthur frowns. The last time he'd seen Rachel, she'd only stared silently as he'd angrily packed his things. She hadn't said goodbye, hadn't said anything at all while Jess pleaded with him to stay. "I rather doubt that. You're projecting kinder emotions than people actually have again, Jess."

"Don't be stupid. You're both as stubborn as each other, I swear. Oh my god, I have to call her. Don't you dare move!" Jessie puts down the dish towel and runs off to the bedroom, returning a moment later with a laptop. "I am going to call her, and you are going to say hi, and don't you even dare try to get out of it!"

She logs into skype and turns to look at Arthur while the call rings.

Rachel's familiar and grumpy voice crackles out of the speakers and Arthur can see her grain face in a grainy office from the side of the computer. She looks… well, like a lawyer. Stern, underfed and over-worked. She's fiercely clutching a coffee mug. "What do you want? I have a meeting in ten minutes."

Jess is grinning like a maniac. "Rach. Rach, I will give you a hundred dollars if you guess who is here with me."

"Seriously, Jess, I don't have time for guessing games today."

Jess triumphantly spins the laptop to face Arthur.

"Hi, Rachel." He says lamely.

She blinks several times, then cranes her neck to try to catch a glimpse of Jess again, as if that will help. "Jessica, if you haven't hurt him very, very badly yet, I am going to have to disown you. And you! What the fuck, Arthur? Ten years! Ten fucking years!"

"Rachel! Language!" Jess covers the baby's ears.

Rachel rolls her eyes. "I swear to all that is holy, Arthur, unless you can tell me that you were cryogenically frozen for a decade for some sort of secret government op: _oops, sorry, couldn't call_, I am going to beat the sh- the stuffing out of you!"

Arthur starts to think that maybe it's a good thing that Rachel lives in another state.

"I, uh, was busy. You know, with things. Work things."

"Army things? Government things?" Jess quints suspiciously at him.

"Um. Related to, yes." Arthur seizes the explanation gratefully. "I can't really talk about specifics."

"Oh my god, I told you, Rachel, he's a spy!"

Arthur tries not to groan, and realises that this is going to be a long afternoon.

* * *

Jessie makes him stay for dinner after Rachel has regretfully disconnected, and he gets to meet the other kid after all.

Michael is a quiet, serious child – nothing like his mother. While Jessie is getting dinner ready, she kicks Arthur out of the kitchen and tells him to 'go bond', whatever that means.

He and Michael stare at each other in the living room in silence. Arthur realises that he knows more about Cobb's kids than he does his own nephew.

"Are you really a secret agent, like James Bond?" Michael finally asks, wide eyed. "Daddy says you catch bad guys so they can't hurt anyone."

Arthur winces. "Um. Something like that. I can't really talk about my job. Sorry."

Michael nods carefully. "Yeah, I know, Dad told me not to say anything at school. The bad guys can hurt you if they find out about Mom and Aunt Rachel and grandma, huh? That's why you can't visit much, right?"

Arthur opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, and he feels like the shittiest human being alive.

"It's okay, you know." Michael continues. "Sometimes heroes have to make hard choices. Like in X-men when X-23 had to leave behind her aunt and cousin, so that they could be safe."

"But I'm not a hero." Arthur says, voice rough.

Michael looks up at him and smiles. "That's alright. I'll be a hero someday, and then you can be my sidekick. If you want."

Arthur blinks once, twice, and then cracks up laughing. Michael joins in after a moment, giggling.

"Absolutely, kiddo, absolutely."

* * *

After dinner, where Arthur meets Jess's husband Jack, a guy he vaguely remembers from Rachel's class in high school, Jess drags him outside with a mug of tea each while Jack puts the kids to bed.

"Are you alright, Artie?"

Arthur startles. "Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?"

She takes a sip of her tea. "You show up out of the blue like this … You scared me."

"I just-" Arthur starts, "it's been a tough couple of years, but it's better now, and I wanted to make sure you were doing okay."

"I am." She nudges him with her shoulder. "But are you?"

He blinks, unsure. "I… I think so. Getting there, anyway."

"Anyone special in your life? Or is that top secret too?" She asks cheekily.

Arthur snorts. "No, not really."

"Not really, or no?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe there's something. Hard to tell."

"Well, why don't you find out?" She asks reasonably. "Life's too short: you can't just sit around waiting for your happy ending to fall into your lap. You have to hunt that mother down and grab hold with both hands!"

Arthur laughs. "I'm glad things worked out for you, Jess. I have to admit, when you got married at 18, I hadn't thought it would last."

She smacks him lightly on the shoulder. "You're awful. Don't you have an ounce of romance in you?"

"Nope." He grins. "The military makes it a point to stamp it out of you."

She shakes her head. "And yet they must not have succeeded with you entirely, because there's still this mysterious maybe-someone in your life. Whom you are absolutely to bring with you for New Years and introduce us to. There, that gives you a deadline by which you have to act."

"Maybe." Arthur hedges and drinks his tea, smiling.

* * *

He is made to promise (under threat of grievous bodily harm) to actually keep the hell in touch this time before Jessie lets him leave the next morning.

Jess had wanted him to stay for a few days, had wanted Rachel to fly out to see him too, had wanted Arthur to go visit their parents, had probably wanted Arthur to stay forever and to work in her husband's accounting firm and to live in her spare room, but Arthur manages to weasel out by muttering vague things about national security.

He feels bad for lying, but it's not like he can tell the truth, not like he can tell her the truth, that he's a _thief_. How on earth would Jessie explain that to her kids? How on earth would Michael take the fact that his uncle is really the super-villain rather than the hero?

It's good to see Jess, though, good to meet his niece and nephew, good even to talk to Rachel because she's actually mellowed in her old age (or maybe she just uses up her bitch quotient at work instead, now), but he can't do this full time. He can call and visit sometimes, but there's no way he'd be able to handle them every day. He might come home for New Year, or maybe drop by for the occasional birthday, but that's going to have to be enough. He left this town for a reason.

Still, it feels like a boulder has been lifted from his shoulders, because now he has family again, or at least what passes for it.

He gets on his flight feeling like he can finally move forward with his life.


	23. Part 11-3

**Notes:** I'd like to be able to say that I had to look up the movie stats, and I don't just happen to know them. I'd like to.  
The fictional worlds mentioned in this arc are not meant to be 100% true to the works: it's a friggin' dream.

* * *

It takes only two months after the Fischer job for Eames to call about a job in Cardiff, Wales. It's weird for Arthur not to be working with Cobb after all that time, but it's freeing.

Eames is thorough, but not a slave driver or a micromanager, and he lets Arthur have professional freedom to do whatever he feels is best. Eames has hired only Arthur, since both of them are adequate at design and the job is simple enough that Arthur can build the dream and run interference while Eames breaks into the mark's mind.

The job is nothing spectacular, as far as work goes, but everything goes as smoothly as clockwork, and it's nice. Eames, at least, never shows up drunk or hung-over for work.

It's a refreshing change.

* * *

Afterwards, Eames doesn't even ask before he drags Arthur to the nearest bar and teaches him strange Russian card games, before asking him about the forgery thing.

Arthur had kind of forgotten that he'd ever asked, but agrees that now is as good a time as any. He books a conference room at the hotel he's staying at, and they get to work the next day.

* * *

Eames builds the dream, because Arthur is going to have enough to worry about with trying to hold on to whatever identity he's taking on.

Arthur doesn't ask Eames, but Eames uses optic building anyway, rather than his usual empathic. Just because Arthur can deal with Eames' builds now doesn't mean his brain needs the extra stress.

The dream, which is loosely based on the conference room they're in up top, only with the addition of a huge mirror on one wall, is disappointingly bland though, rather than Eames' usual sensory bombardment.

"The first thing you need to understand about forging," Eames starts, and he's using his uppity lecture tone for this, which Arthur tires hard not to be irritated by, "is that it is _nothing_ like building. With building, you optic types visualise what you want the world to be like, and then you apply that idea to the raw dreamscape around you. In simple terms, you force-think it into being. Forgery is rather a more subtle art."

Arthur politely doesn't interrupt, but he's tempted, because Eames is a patronizing git and needs to be taken down a few pegs.

"Building requires the straightforward approach – you want someone dead, you shoot them in the heart. Forgery is more like convincing a person that they _want_ to walk themselves off a cliff." Eames paces the room, hands theatrically clasped behind his back like he's a professor or something.

Arthur compromises on his mental promise not to interrupt by raising his hand.

Eames stops pacing and turns towards Arthur. "Yes? What?"

"This is a lovely speech you're giving and everything, but can we get past the metaphors and into the _how-to_ part?"

"If you'd like to take over the class, Arthur, by all means." Eames responds frostily.

"Sorry." Arthur tries for meek, but probably only manages sullen.

"Like I was saying," Eames glowers, "you can't just _force_ a forge, you have to sort of look at it sideways, pretending not to notice it's there as it creeps closer, like a skittish animal."

Arthur nods soberly, lips pressed tightly together to stop himself laughing because _what the actual fuck_.

"Okay, now try to be Cobb." Eames orders.

Arthur jolts out of the pose he'd relaxed into because he'd thought this was going to be a really long lecture. "What? How? You haven't told me how!"

Eames glares at him. "Just do it."

Arthur tries the only way he knows how, by forcing it like he would a dream build, like Eames had explicitly said not to. He thinks about Cobb's face and that squinty look he gets when he's confused but unwilling to admit to it. Not surprisingly, nothing happens, as far as he can see in the mirror.

"I can't." Arthur admits. "I don't know what you mean by not forcing it."

Eames wrinkles his nose. "It's because you're the biggest control freak I've ever met. I told you there's no way this is going to work."

"Giving up already?" Arthur needles. "Next you're going to say you didn't want to teach me, anyway. You English, it's always the same with you."

"No! Just taking a break to re-strategize."

* * *

Three dream hours later and Eames calls it quits.

"You are completely unteachable and will be the death of me." Eames says long-sufferingly when they wake up topside. "I give up. I wash my hands of you. You're hopeless. You haven't the imagination to be a _sandwich artist_."

"No," Arthur responds calmly, "we are clearly just going to have to try something else."

"Nuh uh. No way. I quit."

"I guess you're obviously not as good as you thought you were, then." Arthur shoots back, because the only way to make Eames do something he doesn't want to do is to dare him to do it, and if that fails, then to double-dog-dare him. "'If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.' You know who said that? Einstein."

"Pft." Eames snorts. "You can't get me like that. Don't try to appeal to my competitive side: it's nowhere near as powerful as my lazy side."

Arthur waits, and mentally counts _three, two, one-_

"-_Fine_, let me call Yusuf. I may have an idea." Eames sulkily admits.

* * *

"Here." Eames thrusts a sheet of paper into Arthur's hands. "Tick for the ones you know very well, dot for the ones you know well enough to be able to visualise the main characters."

Arthur looks down and it's a list of movie titles. He's seen some and heard of others, but he's not exactly what one would call a movie buff. "Um, why?"

Eames waves an impatient hand. "Don't question, just do it. I promise I'm going to try not to psychoanalyse you based on what films you've seen."

Arthur looks back down. "I don't know most of these."

Eames rolls his eyes. "I won't judge you for admitting to knowing every line of Titanic, you know. This is for Science, remember?"

Arthur frowns. "I haven't seen Titanic, actually. Not the whole thing, anyway. I saw about five minutes in a waiting room once, but the sound was muted."

"Right. Sure. Okay, if you want to play it that way. What _have_ you seen then? Recently, so it's fresh in your memory?"

Arthur racks his brain. "_Avatar_?" With Phillipa – in his defence – while Cobb was out and unable to tell them off for the rating.

"_Avat_-? How did that get on-! Give me that!" Eames snatches back the sheet to peer at it suspiciously. "That's not on the list, you dolt! Why would _that_ be on there?"

Arthur shrugs. "It's the highest grossing movie ever?"

"Not when you adjust for inflation!" Eames retorts waspishly. "That would be _Gone with the Wind_, which isn't especially a masterpiece or anything, but is still a better option than… _that_, that _thing_ you mentioned!"

Arthur raises an eyebrow and doesn't ask what it is that Eames has against blue alien people with tails. "So what's the second highest after _Gone with the Wind_, then?"

Eames stares at him in pure rage for a movement before sulkily admitting: "Still _Avatar._ But only because people are stupid! Stupid, stupid cattle, who are seduced by pretty colours and 3D glasses."

Arthur rolls his eyes. "I should have figured you'd be a movie snob."

"And I should have figured that you have no taste." Eames throws back.

Arthur completes the stupid form while shaking his head and trying not to laugh.

* * *

"This stuff is made to rob the dreamer of the lucidity they would normally have." Eames says as he swaps out the standard vial for Arthur's line with something he got from a shady-sounding contact calling himself Biscuit or Cracker or something equally suspicious. "Maybe it will stop your brain over-working itself to death while I try to make you unlearn your control-freak ways."

"So basically," Arthur says as Eames swabs his arm in preparation for the PASIV needle, "you're going to roofie my brain."

Eames pauses. "It sounds so shady when you put it that way! I promise that your virtue, such as it might be, is safe with me-" he grins and waits for maximal effect, "-while you're under the influence, anyway."

* * *

_It's a casino. There's a soft yellow glow to everything. A conversation is happening in the background, and the faint clink of glasses is coming from where the bartender is hanging up wine glasses above the counter._

_A man approaches, and it's not-so-secret agent James Bond, blonde hair, blue eyes; set off nicely by his sharp black tuxedo._

_"May I get you a drink, Miss?" He sits on the adjacent stool._

_And she – yes, __**she**__, that's right – smiles graciously because she knows who he is, and he knows who she is, but he doesn't __**know**__ that she knows, and she's played this game before a million times. She can do this._

_She smiles gracefully. "Certainly, Mister..?"_

_He returns the smile and obliges. "Bond. James Bond."_

_She's laughing inside, because he may always win, but he's never met anyone quite like her, and everyone always wins until they don't, and today is not his lucky day._

_He gently takes her hand and raises it to his lips to brush a soft kiss on her knuckles._

_"Charmed, I'm sure." She responds, trying not to be. "Tell me, Mister Bond, do you always buy drinks for strange women in foreign countries?"_

_He lets go of her hand and leans forward to murmur near her ear, and he's close enough that she can feel the heat radiating from his body. "Only for the dazzlingly beautiful ones."_

_She feels a shiver run down her spine. Yes, she is supposed to beat him at this game they're playing, but that doesn't mean she can't enjoy it while it lasts._

_She laughs elegantly and allows him to sweep her onto the dance floor that springs into place._

* * *

He jolts awake with a gasp. His heart is pounding and he's shaky all over, looking wildly around for what startled him into consciousness.

He tries to breathe evenly to slow down his pulse. Distantly, he notices Eames to his left, speaking to him.

Arthur tries to focus on what he's saying, but his brain is stumbling over the words, and he can't seem to catch up with the world.

"What?" He tries to say, and it comes out sluggish, slurred, more like _Wah?_

Eames repeats himself. Arthur catches the word _effect_. He stares uncomprehendingly until Eames obviously gives up.

Arthur's brain finally starts to get with the program and his heart rate slows down, but he's still jumpy with adrenalin.

"What-. What was that?" Arthur finally manages to say, mostly enunciating the words clearly. "I haven't- that felt like waking from a nightmare."

Eames looks sheepish. "Uh, yeah, Yusuf did say something about possible side-effects. I just hadn't thought it would be serious."

Arthur fails to find the energy to be angry right now, because even the adrenalin is subsiding, and now he only feels drained. His knees are shaky and weak when he tests his ability to stand up.

"You need to focus on retaining the dream." Eames orders. "Otherwise it might slip away, like for non-lucid dreamers."

Dream? _Oh, yeah, there was too._

"It was in a casino?" Eames prompts. "Like in the new James Bond movie? Well, not the new-_new_ one, we'll pretend that one doesn't exist; but the previous one – _Casino Royale_?"

Arthur remembers James Bond and the dancing, and he was…

"Your Vesper Lynd was quite convincing, darling, but next time, try to get the dress from the right movie."

Arthur blinks. He'd been a Bond Girl. Why is he not surprised that Eames tricked him into being a Bond Girl.

"Safe with you in my drugged state, my ass." He grumbles as takes the needle out from his skin.

Eames grins. "Oh, but you should be glad I didn't do _Titanic_ after all."

* * *

They try next with a combination drug: half normal Somnacin, half whatever that crap that Eames got from his shady friend.

"It might help you transition to the stage where you can do it on purpose." Eames explains. "See, you – and every other person on earth who's ever fallen asleep, for that matter – can forge perfectly well by accident; everyone has dreams where they're someone else. The trick is doing it on-command, and believably. In your case, we'll be lucky if we can get the on-command part."

Arthur ignore the dig and plugs himself in, emphatically not thinking about the fact that he is basically allowing someone who is capable of inception unbridled control of his brain, not once, not twice, but repeatedly.

"Let's go, Eames." He says grimly. "You can insult me later."

Eames sighs and pushes the button.

* * *

_There's a huge hall. There are four- no, five long tables, around which are crowded hundreds of figures in black clothing._

_"Troll! Troll in the dungeon!" Comes a yell from the far side of the hall_

_"Bloody hell! Hermione's down there!" Ron Weasley says, with an elbow to his – Harry's – side._

_"We'd better go find her, then." Harry replies, patting his pockets to make sure his wand is there. "She might be good, be even she can't take on a full-grown troll all alone."_

_Ron smirks in a decidedly un-Ron-like way. "You can try to impress her with your heroics all you want, mate, she's never going to go out with you."_

_"That's okay, I'll just marry your little sister instead." Harry responds sweetly._

_"Excellent, you're still with it!" Eames says, and then flickers back into Ron. "And you've got the face well enough – though, darling, I'd never have pegged you for such a purist!"_

_Harry frowns, confused._

_"You've made his eyes green, like the book." Ron is smirking. "Daniel Radcliffe has blue eyes in all the movies."_

_"It's sad that you know that, actually." Arthur says. "I read Cobb's kids the books before bedtime – what's your excuse? Also, what's with the decidedly English theme to all of these dreams?"_

_Ron morphs back into Eames and rolls his eyes, only his robes had stretched to still fit him. "Next we'll do one of the __**good**__ American films, I promise. Which will it be, _The Godfather_ or _Shawshank Redemption_? At a stretch, I suppose I might allow _Silence of the Lambs_. Also, are you aware that you lost the grip on your forge as soon as I broke character?"_

_Arthur looks down at himself and yes, he is in fact himself once more, even the wizard robes have turned into his favourite jacket._

_"Should I be alarmed at the common theme of brutality in the three movies you suggested?" Arthur asks._

_"Perhaps you'd best be alarmed at your country, since those are its finest creations." Eames responds innocently._

_Arthur shakes his head wordlessly. "Is this experiment over, yet?"_

_Eames pulls a wand out of his robes, points it at Arthur and says _Avada Kedavra_ with a grin._

* * *

Arthur still wakes up with a jolt, but it's better this time, and he was ready for it. The adrenalin and increased heart rate fade after a moment and he grins at Eames. "I think I'm getting it, now."

"Yeah, like a two year old who's done a finger painting '_gets'_ Michelangelo." Eames grumbles, but it's all for show, because he's grinning.

* * *

_The next dream (only a quarter dosage of the dream-roofie this time) is in a busy office. From the chatter surrounding Arthur, who is actually self-aware without anyone pointing him out to himself this time, gathers he's in the middle of a newspaper office. He sees something with the name _The Daily Planet_ and tries not to groan._

_"Clark, I need that story at the copy desk no later than four or I will end you!" A woman yells at him, and Arthur spins around to face her._

_"Lois Lane – really, Eames?" He asks, grinning. "I didn't think you'd __**actually**__ go for something American."_

_"Kent, I am warning you!" She glares, but there's a familiar spark in her eyes. "If it's not in tomorrow's paper, you will never work in this town again – I don't care what puppy dog eyes you try to pull!"_

_"Sorry, Lois, I'll have it done." Arthur says obediently, but it feels flat and Arthur-like._

_She steps closer and manages to glare down her nose at him, for all that she's shorter. "I mean it. I can't stay here to make sure you do it, either, I have a date."_

_"Really?" Clark asks, suddenly ice-brittle. "With the vigilante?"_

_She sighs. "It's Superman, sweetie – how many times… but yeah."_

_"That's not actually meant to be an S on his suit, you know." Clark mumbles._

_Lois smiles and leans forward to peck him on the cheek. "God, but you're such a dork, Kent. Where'd you grow up, on a farm?"_

_"And that," Arthur cuts in dryly, "is about as much of that as I can stand. Really, Eames? Were you going to jump out of a window next so that I could fly to save you?"_

_Lois laughs. "Absolutely, darling. You don't expect me to pass up the opportunity for a drinking story like that, do you?"_

_"I'm not actually Superman, Eames. I can't fly." Arthur patiently explains._

_Lois shakes her head and turns into Superman, blue spandex and all._

_"Oh, but I can." He says._

_Arthur stares._

_"No, really, I can." Superman walks over to a nearby window, and before Arthur can stop him, he's jumped out._

**_Fuck_**_, Arthur thinks, but then reminds himself that it's okay, it's high up enough that it will be over before Eames can feel pain, he'll just wake up topside, and Arthur had better follow him down quick before the dream collapses, because better to die by thirty storey drop than by collapsing dream._

_He runs over to the window and looks down because some morbid part of him wants to see._

_"Up here, darling." Superman calls._

_Arthur looks up, and there is Superman hovering in mid-air._

_"__**Fuck**__." Arthur actually says this time, and his voice sounds breathy to his ears. "You can __**do**__ that? Did I know you could do that? Did you?"_

_"I can only take Lois flying, you know." Superman says sorrowfully. "Can't be stepping out on my girl with strange men; it's not right."_

_"Oh." Arthur says, and realises he's actually disappointed, without having known he'd been hoping for it at all._

_"If you were Lois, though…" Superman hints._

_Arthur blinks and then Lois is laughing up at Superman. "What the heck are you waiting for, you big oaf. Come down here and get me!"_

* * *

Arthur wakes up, and it's almost like normal wake-up from Somnacin.

"Eames, have I mentioned how amazing you are, lately?"

Eames rolls his eyes. "I'm going to have to talk to Yusuf about this compound. They should use it on terrorists to convert them into peace-loving hippies, if they can have this effect on _you_."

"No, I'm serious!" Arthur protests, but he doesn't feel serious because there's a grin splitting his face. "You've taught me the unteachable in less than a week, and also, you can fly! You should just marry me."

Eames makes a _what the fuck kind of balls are you tripping _face at him. "Okay, I think maybe Cookie added a little something extra into that drug."

Arthur tries to stop grinning, but every time he manages to get his face under control, he sees Eames pouting at the phone he's irritably texting on, and his face cracks into a smile again.

Okay, so maybe there're some side effects.

* * *

A few hours later, Arthur has come down from the high of whatever was in that drug cocktail, and has the mother of all migraines developing. He still thinks Eames is pretty great, though. He's just less vocal about it now, and complains loudly till Eames goes to fetch him a drink because the world moves with him every time Arthur tries to get up and everything is too bright and too loud, and he can't handle talking to the hotel staff right now.

* * *

When Arthur tries to forge under normal Somnacin the next day, he has a few rocky starts, but he can still do it. He even manages to pull off a shaky copy of Cobb.

The trick to it, that thing that Eames had tried and failed to explain, is you don't think about pretending to be whoever you're forging, no, you actually have to let go and really _be_ them for a moment, you have to experience their hopes and fears, you have to share their beliefs and their prejudices, you have to let go of your own self completely.

And it's hard to let go, for a long time, because it's scary, and how how will he know who he is supposed to be, afterwards? But it gets better once he realises that every time, afterwards, 'Arthur' is still waiting exactly where he left him, ready to be worn again like a favourite t-shirt.

Eames mutters some crap about how he's as graceful as a walrus on a unicycle, but Arthur doesn't even care about the fact that his technique will never match up to Eames' standards, because he did it, he can _forge_.

He can be anyone in a dream, now, he can escape projections by switching faces where they can't see, he can escape being recognised in real life by a particularly lucid mark, and best of all, he thinks that maybe one day, Eames might agree to teach him how to fly.


	24. Part 12

**Notes:** The cat in Eames' head was inspired by Lions and Tigers by Starlingthefool (ArchiveOfOurOwn ID: 146459), which you guys should go read, it's fantastic.

* * *

Arthur is in France when he's woken by the shrill ringtone of his phone one morning.

The hotel alarm clock reads 5:51.

The number calling is international, and not in his contacts. Arthur sighs and answers the call.

"What."

"Arthur, oh thank god." The voice is stilted, forced.

Arthur's pretty sure he's not going to get back to sleep after a phone call at 6 AM, so he puts on the bedside light and rubs at his eyes.

The caller continues: "You know everyone, right? Got any contacts in Moscow? Someone who can find me some cash, or documents, or at least a place to crash while I get my shit together? Some proficiency with a needle and some antiseptic wouldn't go amiss, either. Oh, this is Eames, by the way."

Arthur sits the fuck up in bed. "Are you okay? What happened? Are you injured?"

Arthur hears something clatter onto the ground and Eames hisses on the other end. "Only a bit. It's fine, as long as I don't first die of frost bite or get arrested, I'll be fine. To avoid both of those, I'm going to need your help. I don't know anyone in this region."

Arthur racks his brain, trying not to get distracted by the somewhat frightening thought that Eames called _him_, and is now relying on him to get him out of what sounds like a mess. "Um. Yeah, there's Natalya, you know, Lukin's goddaughter – she usually operates out of Moscow, and if she's not there, she will know someone who is. Are you on a cell? I can text you her number in a second? I'll let her know you'll be calling. Are you okay to call her? Or you can tell me where you are, and I'll call her?"

Eames coughs wetly. "Are you telling me, that the infamous Arthur hasn't memorized the mobile phone codes for every country that uses them? I'm disappointed. Yeah, I'm on a mobile; yeah, I can call her; but sure, give her a heads-up first."

"Okay, I will." Arthur says and then purses his lips. "If you ditch or lose this phone, can you try to let me know if you get out okay, later?"

Eames hacks out a laugh. "Sure, darling. And thanks. Now we're square, yeah?"

"What?" Arthur asks, confused.

"That favour you owed me? For the forgery thing? Consider it cashed in as of the moment your friend shows up and doesn't shoot me on sight. Never know what to expect with the Ruskis, you know."

Arthur lowers the phone from his ear so he can text first Natalya (it's almost 8 there, surely she's awake?) and then Eames, and the whole time, he's frowning.

Does it say something about Arthur, or about Eames, that Eames felt he could only ask for help because Arthur owed him a favour?

* * *

Natalya texts Arthur back three hours later in French because she refuses to admit to knowing English and Arthur's Russian is terrible.

_Your friend will be fine. Contact me before 9 AM ever again, and YOU won't be. He says hi, by the way, or I think he does, but his Russian is worse than yours so I can't be sure._

Arthur puts the phone down and doesn't relax at the news, not in the slightest. It's not like he was worried or anything.

* * *

He hears, later, on the grapevine, that Eames was only shot in the shoulder, but had the _militsia_ on his tail for illegal firearm possession and also something about attempted murder, which Arthur has a hard time believing because if Eames wanted someone dead, they would be – no attempt about it.

* * *

It's been six months since the Fischer job when Cobb tries to go back to dreamshare. Arthur doesn't let him.

"But I'm good!" Cobb argues. "I am the best, maybe! I invented inception and then used it successfully on one of the most powerful and rich men in the world!"

Arthur rubs his temple and kindly doesn't point of the bit where Dom is, in part at least, responsible for his wife's death. "You stumbled onto the idea by accident and then you hired a bunch of people to incept one of the most powerful and rich men in the world _for _you, you mean."

Cobb gapes, bewildered at Arthur's sudden insubordination. "You were only too happy to work with me when it was going to earn you a shit-ton of money!"

Arthur raises a sarcastic eyebrow. "Yeah, clearly I followed you around the globe for all the prestigious and well-paying jobs that got me. Clearly I didn't fight tooth and claw for you _not_ to take Saito's well-paying job. Clearly I am so fixated on money that now that I don't need you anymore, I have nothing to do with you or the kids and don't care either way what you get up to."

Cobb scowls. "I can find work without you, you know. I don't _need_ you. I just thought I'd do _you_ a favour and ask you first."

Arthur sighs. "Have you seriously forgotten all the times we've been shot at, double-crossed, almost arrested, kidnapped, and just generally maltreated? You have kids! This is why you and Mal drifted away from this business, remember? Do you want your children to grow up without a father, whether because you're on the job, in jail or dead? You leave it long enough, they're not going to _want_ you back, you realise that? You'll become just that lame guy who sometimes visits, but usually only makes grandma purse her lips with disapproval."

Cobb doesn't reply, sullen.

"Go home to your family, Dom," Arthur says and turns away, "while you still have one."

* * *

"Hard at work, eh? No rest for the wicked, and all that." Eames says from behind on the next job they do together. Arthur doesn't drop the notebook he's holding, but it's a near thing.

"I see you're all better, and also not rotting in a labour camp in Siberia."

Eames snorts. "They don't do that anymore. Supposedly. Thanks, by the way. Sorry for the disturbance."

Arthur stares. "You _can_ ask for help without having done something in return, you know. For future reference."

"You'll regret saying that, later, you know." Eames grins. "So what's the deal with Cobb's foundling being here?"

"If you mean Ariadne," Arthur raises an eyebrow, "she's gotten even better, if you would believe it, so don't knock her just because she's young."

"I have nothing against young," Eames waves him away; "you were young when we first met, and you turned out alright."

In response, Arthur rolls his eyes. "I would tell you to be nice to her, but I suspect that if you aren't, she'll make you pay for it in far more painful ways than I ever could."

"Aw, don't say that, darling! You'll always be the most vicious avenger of insults in _my_ eyes!"

* * *

They get at the mark in his office during lunch hour. John Wisniewski is the millionaire CEO of the company, so the room is big enough that there's plenty of space for them to sprawl on various chairs and settees. Wisniewski 's lunch hour is the only time he tells his assistant to hold his calls and no one, including his bodyguards, is allowed to bother him.

Eames has injected Wisniewski's bottle water with a light sedative, and Ariadne, dressed as a harmless delivery girl, brings in his lunch.

The mark is down for the count before Ariadne has even had to pretend to leave, and she lets Arthur and Eames in through the window – which, honestly, Arthur is never repeating again, because he's not trying out for Spiderman here and he can barely feel his fingers from the cold of crouching on a balcony after having swung down a few floors with some flimsy rock-climbing gear hours earlier.

Arthur rubs his hands together until he's regained enough feeling to inject the needle of the PASIV into the Wisniewski's arm and then his own, while firmly ignoring Eames's leery offer to warm him right up.

He makes sure everyone is ready and then he puts them under.

* * *

"So what's the deal with you and Eames?" Ariadne yells over the roar of a waterfall as the hike through the first level of a two-level job.

No, really, a _waterfall_. Why Eames thought this was necessary for a standard extraction, Arthur will never know.

"What?" Arthur yells back, even though he's heard perfectly.

"I can't figure out if you're one of those on-again, off-again couples, or you just never got over each other. Whichever it is, you're obvious as hell, and you need to both either kiss and make up, or get out of each other's spaces and move the hell on!"

"Is this really the best time and place to discuss my private life?" Arthur tries not to slip on the wet rocks, which are very authentically covered with moss, which is _really not helping_ with the whole balance thing.

"Why, because we're in his head and his dream walls probably have ears?" Ariadne replies, pushing her soaked hair out of her face.

"No, because we're in the middle of a tricky extraction job, and I actually like to pretend to be a professional sometimes." Arthur yells, only there's no real need to yell now, as the falls are fading to a distant rumble behind them, and the only other noise is the birds and insects populating the forest. The goddamned _forest_.

He continues, at a more appropriate volume, "Also, there's the small matter of the bodyguards up top who may have, in the time we've been under, realised that their principal is awfully quiet, gone to investigate, found us unconscious and plugged into the same machine as their baby millionaire, and taken appropriate actions."

"Yeah, but here you're a captive audience!" Ariadne smiles innocently. "Up top, you'd just brush me off and run away, like a certain moody architect we know. I'm only trying to help, you know. And if they _had_ found us, we'd either be dead or have been unplugged from the dream, so unless _this_ is your idea of a grand afterlife, everything is obviously fine."

Arthur doesn't reply straight away, and pointedly forges himself some dry clothes while Ariadne shivers, looking something like a drowned rat. His conscience (which sounds an awful lot like Mal, sometimes) nags at him until he forges a big, warm coat on top of his clothes and hands it Ariadne. There was supposed to be a cache of warm clothes nearby, but either Eames got the location wrong, or he forgot it, or else Arthur is desperately lost.

"We're not a couple, actually. Eames and me, I mean. Never have been." He finally answers, and turns away from her, heading off in the direction he _thinks_ they're supposed to be going.

Ariadne hurries to catch up, looking ridiculous in the huge coat. "What? No way. Look, if there's some sort of unofficial anti-fraternization rule that you broke, you don't have to lie to me, I don't know about the rule, right – so I can't tell you off for breaking it."

Arthur turns back and lets her catch up and gives her a funny look. "We're really not a thing. I don't know where you got that idea from."

"Oh." She answers. "But the way you guys interact – either it's bitchy as hell, or it's push-and-pull flirtation like something out of crappy romance novel, and that seemed like the most obvious answer."

Arthur doesn't respond, so Ariadne adds: "Sorry, if I, you know, offended you by assuming or anything. "

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Offended? Hardly. There are worse people to be mistaken to be with. There's a rumour going around about me and Cobb, apparently, and that's horrifying for several reasons. Eames and I, though, we just never..."

"… never got around to it?" She finishes for him.

He shrugs and sets off again. "Sure, if you like.."

"Why the hell not? You guys seem like a perfect match. He's obviously not averse to you, nor you to him, so what the hell are you guys subjecting us to all this _will-they-won't-they_ drama for?"

Arthur doesn't know how to reply to that.

* * *

He's given it idle thought, sometimes, him and Eames; but the problem is that Arthur believes in only two kinds of sex. The no-strings-attached kind, with one night stands he'll never see again or semi-regularly with acquaintances to whom he has no particular romantic attachment to, nor they to him; and then there's the kind that _does_ involve emotions and all that crap, and that's the relationship kind of sex.

The problem with Eames is that Arthur knows him too well, and likes him too much – enough that he could see himself becoming emotionally involved, so _just sex_ is out.

As to relationships – well, that's kind of terrifying, because the longest relationship Arthur's ever been in lasted three months, and he doesn't really want himself and Eames to end up on the same terms as he had with that particular ex.

The thing is, though, he's turning thirty next year, and he's completely alone. Yeah, he has his sisters, and he might go visit Cobb sometimes, but he used to have Mal as his in-built go-to, and then he had Dom living in his pocket, but now Mal is dead and Cobb is busy failing at being a Soccer Mom. For all that Arthur is perfectly capable of working and living alone, he misses having a person around whom he can talk to, someone who is all his, and he all theirs.

Sometime it gets a bit much, having only himself for company. He rather gets sick of the inside of his own head.

And Eames – Eames is good at pulling Arthur out of his own head, whether by infuriating him or by starling a laugh out of him. He also knows when to leave Arthur to his own devices, which is a skill even Mal hadn't fully mastered – something that led to most of their few spats.

The problem with Eames, of course, is that where Arthur is looking for a best friend with benefits, Eames strikes him as the sort to sleep around till he's seventy five, and then get some rotating-roster live-in hookers to keep him company. Arthur doesn't see Eames as the settling down sort.

When he points that out to Ariadne, though, she only wallops him with a heavy coat sleeve.

"You're the dumbest smart person I know." She says crossly. "You can't read his mind! You don't know what he'll say. Maybe he doesn't seem like the settling down sort because the right person hasn't offered yet. If you never try, you'll never know. Aren't you supposed to be the fearless one? Stop being such a wuss and just ask him."

Arthur doesn't point out that fearlessness is not the same thing as bravery and just pushes on with this god-awful hike, for which Eames is going to owe him a drink or ten.

* * *

"What the _hell_ is _that_?" Arthur asks when he and Ariadne come back from the second level and find a huge black panther calmly sitting between them and the mark, who is still under, but due to wake back up on One any moment.

"That, girls and boys, is Gwen." Eames comes out from behind a tree, grinning. "Isn't she fantastic?"

The panther doesn't do anything more threatening than flick its tail in Arthur and Ariadne's direction.

"Oh my gosh, she's beautiful!" Ariadne reaches over slowly to pet the giant cat, because apparently being torn to shreds by projections on numerous occasions still hasn't taught her a healthy sense of caution.

Arthur does the sensible thing and edges away from the thing with the pointy-looking teeth.

"Is she one of your projections?" Ariadne coos, not even looking up at Eames from the clawed and fanged monster currently purring under her hand.

"More or less." Eames answers smugly. "She's my Mr Charles, if you like. Don't be fooled by the pussy cat act, she can be a right little demon when she needs to be. The last person silly enough to try to extract from me is still in a mental ward."

"Gwen." Arthur says, unimpressed. "You named your head of security – who, might I add, is an _oversized cat_, of all things – _Gwen_? You really _do_ have a Camelot fixation."

Eames tries to look innocent. "You don't know that. I might have named her for Gwen Stefani."

"Did you?" Ariadne asks, still fussing over the wild animal and making baby talk noises at it.

"Well," Eames says, "no. But I _could_ have."

"I'm not going to ask if that makes you the King or Sir Lancelot," Arthur says determinedly, "because then you just might answer, and I don't need that knowledge in my life."

Eames rolls his eyes but doesn't elaborate.

"Everything go alright on Two? You lot weren't gone as long as I'd expected."

"That's what we professionals like to call competence," Arthur says smugly, as if Eames doesn't have it in spades – when he chooses to utilise it, anyway, "something I'm sure you wouldn't be familiar with."

Ariadne looks up from the cat, which is practically in her lap, and Arthur doesn't want to think too hard about a part of Eames' subconsciousness crawling all over her.

"Arthur was really good, he had the file before I'd even realised he'd gotten into the safe." She says loyally.

"I suppose we're done he-"

Eames is just turning to Ariadne when she suddenly slumps over.

_Fuck_, Arthur thinks.

He steps over and checks her over. No pulse, but no blood, not bullet wound, no nothing. Dead in a dream with no obvious cause only happens when something's happened in the level up above. Which, in this case, is reality. He looks up at Eames.

Eames must read his expression because he curses. "You think someone's unplugged her?"

"Let's hope they've _only_ unplugged her." Arthur says darkly. "It won't take more than a few seconds, real time, for them to do us, next. How about we beat them to it? I have two guns on me up top, they might not have found the one in my leg holster. You?"

"Two knives, one of which is almost definitely still on me. Loaded gun in my jacket, but that's across the room."

"We're going to have to be _really_ good, then." Arthur says, watching Eames. "We'll have only a few seconds jump on them if we go right now."

Eames grins humourlessly and Arthur flashes back to the Fischer job, when Eames had warned him to be careful before going down to Three.

"I'm right behind you, darling."

Arthur shoots himself out of the dream.

* * *

He wakes with a jolt and rolls to his feet before he's even aware of his surroundings. He never thought he'd be this grateful to the military training that already has his hand on his leg, searching for his gun – which isn't there, sadly, but at least he's checked

They – whoever _they_ are, probably the bodyguards – planned ahead, then, but not far ahead enough ahead to restrain him, or Eames, as he sees Eames off to the side, awake and similarly taking stock of the available resources.

"Fucking let _go_, you- you _trained monkey_." Ariadne yells from behind Arthur and he spins around, so relieved that she's still alive that he almost relaxes.

One of the three bodyguards, the one with the least muscle mass, is firmly holding Ariadne, with a gun pressed firmly to her temple. That doesn't seem to be discouraging her from squirming in his grip, though.

So, it's not that he and Eames were left unrestrained by accident, it's just that they have Ariadne hostage, and are assuming he and Eames will play ball. Sadly, they assume correctly.

"What the hell were you doing? What's wrong with him?" The biggest bodyguard demands of Arthur, waving a gun in the direction of the still-sleeping Wisniewski.

"Alrighty, then." Eames speaks up, behind and to Arthur's left. "Let's all take a deep breath and calm down. You've got the girl, you've got the guns, you're in control – just don't be getting itchy with the trigger finger, now then, alright?"

Arthur glances back and Eames has his hands up and is talking in a calm, even voice. It's terrorist negotiation basics, but Arthur would never have expected it from Eames, who tends to be the hot-headed one, when he bothers to get emotionally involved at all.

"What kind of amateur do you think I am?" The bodyguard sounds almost defensive. "I won't shoot the brat if you talk."

"Hey!" Ariadne tries to protest the description, but Arthur waves at her to stay silent and not to draw any attention to herself. It's better for them to underestimate her, anyway, particularly since she's standing right on top of Eames' jacket, the one that hopefully still has a gun in it. Pity she doesn't know about the gun, or, probably, how to shoot.

"He's just sleeping." Arthur says about the mark. "No permanent damage." He's wondering wildly how he can turn this situation around. Best case, they get arrested for B&E and assault at the very least. Worst case, they get dead.

"At least for now there's no damage." Eames adds, rather unhelpfully, Arthur thinks, but then catches on.

Arthur takes a gamble. "But we have to wake him up very carefully, or there might be."

"I don't think so, pal. I unplugged the girl, and she seems alright."

"She's probably suffering tremendous brain damage, actually." Arthur retorts, and tries not to react to the murderous glare Ariadne sends his way. "She was genius level, before – does she sound like a genius, now?"

Ariadne is going to murder him. At least for that, they'd both have to survive this.

He hopes these guys always properly disconnect the USB device – assuming they possess the brain power to operate a computer at all. Surely all that muscle doesn't leave much space in their head for grey matter. "And anyway, your guy was the subject; he would suffer far worse from being disconnected improperly than the rest of us."

The bodyguard looks to Eames as if to confirm. Eames nods, wide eyed. "Oh yeah, I met a bloke once who had that happen to him. They're trying to get him back on solids, but the food usually just dribbles out, even when they can get him to chew. Sad case, really. Tragic, even. His children were heartbroken." He nods solemnly, and Arthur tries not to cringe at how thickly Eames is laying it on. So maybe these guys are hired muscle not for their crossword skills, but that doesn't mean they're actually brain-dead.

Bodyguard 1 looks uncertainly over at Bodyguard 2, and then at Bodyguard 3, the guy with a gun to Ariadne's head.

Arthur, meanwhile, catches Ariadne's attention and looks intently at the coat under her feet. Frowning, she tries to look down without being able to move her head. Arthur surreptitiously makes a gun shape with his hand against his leg. Her eyes widen.

Bodyguard 1 finishes his silent conference with the other two and turns back to Arthur. "If you're lying, I will shoot all three of you, and considering you're intruders into the office of the man we're paid to protect from people like you, the cops won't even bother filing charges, that's how much of an open and shut self-defence case that would be."

Arthur would be impressed at the (mostly accurate) procedural knowledge of the justice system, but supposes this guy has probably learnt it all first hand.

"Just let me near him, and I'll wake him properly. Just don't point your guns at me; I need to have steady hands for this." Arthur inserts a pleading tone into his voice and tries to loo freaked out and not like he's using Psych 101 on them.

"Nice try, mister." Bodyguard 2 pipes up for the first time, and even Bodyguard 3, the one holding Ariadne points his gun at Arthur instead. "Just how stupid do you think we are?"

Ariadne needs a fucking pay raise after this, because she starts sniffling and looks pleadingly up at the guard. "I think I twisted my ankle. Can I sit down? Please?"

She looks so helpless and scared that for a moment Arthur forgets that she's standing right on top of a gun and is seriously worried about her.

Bodyguard 3 looks kind of horrified that Ariadne might get snot all over his designer suit and after a nod from Bodyguard 1, loosens his hold enough for her to slip down and clutch at her ankle. He does step back a bit to keep her in sight while also keeping his gun trained on Arthur, though, so he's not a complete sucker.

Arthur holds his hands where everyone can see them and carefully walks over to where Wisniewski is still passed out at the desk. He'd already have left the dream, because Eames, the dreamer, has long left it, and it would have collapsed without him, but they always run a light sedative through the Somnacin mix for the mark so that they don't wake up as soon as the dream is over, and give the extraction team time to pack up and leave without a trace. Nothing like the sedative Cobb and Yusuf used, so there's no danger of ending up in limbo after the dream collapses, but the mark is still unconscious.

The PASIV itself is on Wisniewski's desk, three lines still lying on the ground where they were dropped, collecting germs and dirt. Arthur starts slowly pushing buttons on the machine, nothing more meaningful than checking the timer and current stores of Somancin on the small screen, but hopefully looking like a legitimate procedure.

He's watching Ariadne out of the corner of his eye, and Eames too. Eames has something in his hand, something that Arthur suspects is a knife. He's near enough to Bodyguard 1, who seems to be the leader, that he might be able to take him out, or at least incapacitate him. Ariadne is slowly moving her hand under the jacket she's plopped herself down onto.

"Hurry it up!" Bodyguard 1 snarls. "Unless you need motivation in the form of me putting a few bullets into your friends?"

_Sorry, guys_, Arthur thinks at the others, because he can't really give them any more time to do whatever it is they're going to do.

"It's been good, guys." He says aloud and wakes up the mark, programming a jolt of adrenalin into the line.

Wisniewski wakes up with a gasp, and pushes back in his chair, eyes wild. "What? What? What's going on?"

That's the moment Ariadne pulls the gun out from the jacket, and apparently she _does_ at least know how to operate the safety because she lets of a shot into the ceiling. Arthur has grabbed a fancy letter opener, which, while not exactly sharp, would still hurt if you stabbed someone in the right fleshy bit. Eames, in the pandemonium following the gun fire, has grabbed Wisniewski and now has an _actual_ knife pressed to his throat.

"Righto." Eames exclaims. "You lot may think you can get off a shot before I cut John-here's throat, but you would be _wrong_. Don't try it. No one needs to die here, but I would kindly ask that you lot stand back and allow us to leave. Then you can have your boss back. I am sure he will pay you all nice bonuses for keeping him alive, and also for having the astonishing brainpower to come investigate in the first place. Allowing us to escape is just a minor set-back. You will surely have us caught in no time by this city's finest, anyway. They can set up roadblocks, or even wanted posters from the no-doubt flattering security footage. So don't be heroes. Heroes get dead."

Arthur doesn't share the fact that they'd already disabled the relevant cameras or wiped the footage of any of them entering the building.

Bodyguards 2 and 3 are the first to pull back, but they keep their guns aimed at Eames and Arthur, respectively, which Arthur finds a little bit offensive because Ariadne's the one with the _gun_, he's got a fricking letter-opener. To be fair, she probably couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with that thing, but _they_ don't know that.

Bodyguard 1 looks over at Wisniewski, who is plainly terrified. "Let them go, you moron!"

Bodyguard 2 nudges Bodyguard 1 with his elbow. "'Protect the principal at all costs', boss."

Bodyguard 1 grudgingly takes a step back. "There is no way I'm allowing you to take Mr Wisniewski hostage with you. But there's no other way you're getting past the front desk, not after the gunfire, they'll be on full alert."

Eames smiles at him. "Oh, that's alright. We weren't planning to go past the front desk. Arthur, can you get the ropes?"

Arthur supposes that to everyone else, it might sound like Eames is planning to tie these guys up so they can't follow. But Arthur knows better. He wishes he didn't, but he does. It's good to have back-up routes of escape, he supposes, but they were supposed to just casually walk out of Wisniewski's office at the end of his lunch hour, hopefully passing for businessmen (and woman, once Ariadne had changed out of the delivery uniform).

Arthur sighs at the idea of once again dangling on the side of a skyscraper and mentally prepares himself for the ten storey drop down to the street.

* * *

Eames is the last to go, since he's the one holding the knife and the gun that Ariadne had returned to him on Wisniewski. Ariadne and Arthur had attached the harness to him while he kept an eye (and weapon) on the mark and the bodyguards.

Arthur and Ariadne are already on the ground by the time Eames takes his turn, and Arthur imagines that Eames probably lets his hostage go with a flourish and an _au revoir!_ as he leaps out of the balcony, but that's probably just Arthur's imagination working overtime.

Thankfully, no one tries to shoot at Eames on the way down. They hear sirens in the distance, but before Eames has even hit the ground, Arthur has the car ready to go.

They abandon the harnesses and go like stink.

"How the hell did they get us?" Eames asks Ariadne in the backseat as Arthur concentrates on speeding and running red lights enough to get away fast, but not enough to draw the attention of any passing cops. They can still hear sirens, but they're fading into the distance.

"I don't know!" Ariadne replies. "There was no reason for anyone to disturb Wisniewski today, and he's never kind to anyone who bothers him at lunch."

"Sometimes shit just happen." Arthur interjects grimly and swerved to avoid an SUV with twenty million bumper stickers. "Sometimes people deviate from their routines for no particular reason. It doesn't matter. We're alive, we're going to get the fuck out of this city before anyone actually manages to get the cops organised, and then we're going to bloody lay low for a while."

"Well." Eames says. "Finally your anal-retentive ways pay off. I solemnly promise never to question your paranoid over-planning ever again."

Arthur smirks at him in the mirror. "It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you."

Ariadne snorts and Eames only shakes his head.

* * *

After they've left behind two state lines and three different vehicles, Arthur finally allows them to stop running and himself to relax.

Arthur is all for splitting the hell up and laying low for the next, oh, _year_ or so, but Ariadne convinces them to go celebrate being alive and not in jail. Eames pretends not to see Arthur warning him in Morse code blinks about Ariadne and agrees.

She insists on picking the place, and it's a club filled with dancing teenagers. Arthur shares a look of horror with Eames but decides to humour Ariadne and her taste in venues, because, yeah, okay, maybe he owes her for almost getting her shot.

They manage to score an empty booth just as a trio of glitter-covered, chattering girls is leaving.

Eames is off getting them a second round of drinks when Ariadne turns to Arthur and declares: "You know, if you don't try to tap that, I will."

Arthur sets down his mostly empty glass and blinks rapidly at her. He doesn't bother to pretend to misunderstand. "Eames? No you won't." He says assuredly. "You wouldn't sabotage our epic romance or whatever you think he and I have going on."

She widens her eyes innocently. "Wouldn't I?"

"No, you're better than that," Arthur replies, less sure of himself, "and anyway, he thinks you're, like, twelve or something."

She bats her eyelashes, going for harmless. "You guys met when you were about my age, didn't you?"

Arthur wonders if it's too late in the night in LA to call Cobb and tattle on his little protégé for being a conniving little shit.

"You can't just keep the _status quo_ going forever, Arthur. Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. If nothing else, surely this job has showed you that life's too short not to."

She finishes off the rest of her drink, grabs the new one Eames is returning with and and heads off the dance floor.

* * *

With Ariadne's absence, it's more obvious how much older they are than everyone else in the club. Eames doesn't seem to notice, and Arthur doesn't really care where he drinks, even if he would enjoy a slightly lower volume to the music. Oh god, he's getting _old_. He's complaining about the music.

"I want to say I'm never doing that again," Arthur admits miserably, "but I know I'll be back doing the same thing next week, or next month, because apparently I have a death wish or something."

"Nah," Eames says, stretching back in his seat, "what you've got is a taste for adventure."

"I'm not sure that 'adventure' is an accurate way to describe this job." Arthur says with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe not for a normal person." Eames agrees. "But we're hardly normal. And if you're still caught up on corrupting and endangering poor innocent Ariadne, just remember that she was the one who gave Mr Wisniewski a new ventilation hole in the ceiling of his office, and probably would have done worse if it had been required."

"She's a kid!" Arthur insists.

"Tell me, how old were you when you stopped being an innocent kid? Because I'm guessing you were younger than she is now."

_Nineteen_, Arthur doesn't say. _I was nineteen when I shot a man._

"She's old enough to decide for herself." Eames says, not unkindly. "It's admirable that you want to protect her, but she's got to grow up sometime, and believe me, she's got her eyes wide open. If she wants out, she will _get_ out."

Arthur doesn't respond. He takes a sip of his drink and watches the coloured lights dance on the walls.

"What was up with the panther, anyway?" He asks finally, more than ready for a change of topic. It seems like a lifetime ago, being down in the actual dream, but he's been wanting to ask since it happened. "I've never seen you with it before, even in dreams where we get attacked, and could have, you know, used a giant fighting cat."

Eames shrugs. "She only comes out when she's really needed. Surely, you of all people know that the less people that know about a trick you have, the better. So, I don't advertise all my secrets – I notice you let Ariadne believe that the reason you can change your clothes at will in dreams is because you're just better and wiser than her, not because you learned to forge."

Arthur waves the accusation away. He didn't imply anything of the sort, but if she wants to believe that Arthur has mad skills, well, that's her prerogative.

"The name thing – was it really a Camelot reference," Arthur asks, a little more buzzed than he really should be for this conversation, "or was it just a passive-aggressive continuation of the 'raised by cat ninjas' theory?"

Eames tries not to grin, but is losing the battle. "Is that your way of asking if I named a part of my subconscious mind after you? A bit big-headed of you, isn't it?"

"But did you?"

"Well. Perhaps. Don't let it go to your head or anything."

Arthur sits up from his casual sprawl, a frown stealing over his face. "_Why_?"

Eames shrugs and takes a sip of his drink. "Dunno. I saw you take down an armed projection in less than three seconds, once, with just your bare hands. Before that, my Mr Charles was always a different face every time. I've had T-800, River Tam, even Neo on one memorable occasion. Then this massive black cat started showing up and tearing people to shreds if they were a threat to me. You'd been wearing a black suit, that time with the ill-fated projection, so I thought: why not, and called her Gwen, because she was obviously a lady. She hasn't complained about it."

Arthur sits back in his seat and stares at Eames. He's said it so casually, that he probably hasn't realised what he's actually _said_. Or maybe it doesn't mean anything to him, to admit that his subconsciousness ranks Arthur – or at least, something _inspired_ by Arthur – next to the _Terminator_ for badass-ness.

Eames is smirking at where Ariadne's dancing between two people.

Arthur wonders if maybe Eames thinks as highly of Arthur as Arthur does of him. He wonders if maybe Ariadne had a point, when she told him to just ask, because maybe Eames isn't the settling down sort, but maybe he likes Arthur enough to try.

Arthur takes a sip of his drink to have something to do. Now or never. _Life's too short._

"You know," he starts, "Ariadne thought you and I were a couple. Or had been, or something."

Eames turns back to Arthur, face unreadable. "Is that so?"

"Mm." He says, staring more intently into his glass than is strictly required. "Apparently the will-they-won't-they drama is getting to her."

Eames smirks. "Get to the point."

Arthur suspects Eames has already guessed what the point is, because neither of them have ever mentioned this thing of theirs, this flirtation slash competition they have going on, and now that the elephant in the room has been pointed out, it has to be addressed, either way.

"She says she wishes we would just get it out of our systems and stop hogging the gossip column."

"She said that, did she? And _you_, of course, have no particular feelings on the matter."

"None at all." Arthur agrees.

"Did it really take you five years to get around to propositioning me? Usually it happens in the first ten minutes."

"_Six_ years, actually." Arthur corrects snottily. "And that's because usually after ten minutes, people realise what an insufferable idiot you are, and are no longer able to stomach the thought of sleeping with you."

"For someone trying to sleep with me, you're not doing a very good job of sounding keen on the idea." He teases.

Arthur rolls his eyes, gets up from the booth and drags Eames up with him.

"I'll show you _keen_."

He drags Eames onto the dance floor, far away from Ariadne because she's a giant know-it all and doesn't need anything else swelling her head, like being _right_.

Eames is looking a bit startled when Arthur finally faces him, pushed close together by the crowd.

The proximity is making Arthur's skin warm, and even in the dim lighting, he can see the green specks in Eames' eyes, they're so close.

"You're actually serious." Eames says, wonderingly. "How much have you had to drink, Arthur? Only four, by my count, and it should take a whole lot more than that to get you sloshed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining – but since when is this _you_?"

Arthur wonders what Eames means by 'this' (human, emotional, _sexual_?), but only says _"_Since now." and kisses him straight on the mouth.

* * *

It devolves into a lot of groping-disguised-as-dancing (like they're the only ones), and once Eames stops long enough to say: "You know, this is a terrible idea."

He doesn't take his hands off Arthur, though.

Arthur waves goodbye at Ariadne as they leave to catch a cab to… someone's hotel room, he's not even sure.

They probably scar the cabbie for life, but Arthur doesn't even care because he's feeling kind of euphoric, and it's not even the alcohol, from which he's just tipsy – it's just that he' been emphatically not thinking about Eames like this for so long that it's kind of shocking how good this can feel, to just let go and enjoy the ride.

They barely make it to the hotel, and it's Arthur's hotel they get to, but he's not even sure who gave the cabbie the address or when. He's still with it enough to remember his room number and not to have lost his key card.

By the time the stumble in through the door, Eames' shirt is completely undone and Arthur's pants are only hanging on due to good tailoring, because they're undone and the belt is missing.

Arthur remembers to kick the door closed behind them, and then they're on the bed and Arthur doesn't think anymore for a while.

* * *

He wakes up a few times that night from Eames moving next to him, but he's used to being woken by anything and everything, and goes right back to sleep, still smiling faintly.

The third time he wakes up, Eames is gone, and Arthur starts to freak out before he hears the tap running in the bathroom.

The tap shuts off and Eames comes back into the room, the light from the bathroom temporarily blinding Arthur to the fact that Eames is dressed.

Not in his shirt and underwear; no, he's fully dressed, shoes and all. Arthur glances at the clock next to the bed and it reads 6:30 AM. His heart sinks.

Eames shoots a cautious look at Arthur and startles when he sees him awake. "You're up. Sorry if I woke you."

His voice still sounds sleep-rough.

"It's fine." Arthur says, sitting up and doesn't ask, doesn't say _are you sneaking out on me?_ "I'm a light sleeper."

"I've- I've got a flight to catch."

For a professional liar, Eames can be surprising awful at it.

Arthur doesn't respond.

"I was going to leave you a note, or something, but I guess since you're awake…" Eames trails off, probably realising how weak it sounds and starts digging around, looking for something, probably his phone.

"When will you be done with whatever you're flying off to?" Arthur asks, throwing him a final chance, voice dead, and doesn't say anything about the flashing notification light he can see coming from the other side of the room.

Eames pauses his search. "A week or so. I've got a job with Zoe, after. We could use you on it, if you're keen."

Arthur flashes back to the feeling of Eames pressing against him on a crowded dance floor. As far as consolation prizes go, the offer of work is pretty pathetic.

"I'm busy next week." Arthur lies, and probably does a much better job of it that Eames has been. "Maybe next time."

Eames finally notices the blue light flashing from the corner and grabs his phone. He pats his pockets to check everything else is there. "Well, I'd better be off. I'll- see you around, I guess."

"Yeah." Arthur echoes. "See you around."

He lies back down on the bed and stares at the ceiling as the door clicks shut behind Eames.

* * *

**Notes:** I fear this story will just keep going forever if I allow it to, so I am setting myself a limit of 30 chapters, but, um, the length of the chapters may vary.


	25. Part 13-1

After the initial hurt fades, Arthur finds he's angry. Mostly at himself, but partly at Eames, because Eames is a shithead for walking out the morning after, for having tried to _sneak_ out.

He's cursing himself for ever listening to Ariadne – what the hell would she know, anyway, she hasn't even finished school yet – and also for being stupid enough to think that Eames could read Arthur's mind and guess that Arthur was after more than a one-night stand.

Once upon a time, he would have gone to talk it through with Mal, because she was good at telling Arthur all the right things when it came to romantic issues. Mal's dead, though, but he still needs to take his mind off Eames, and he's too distracted to do it the usual way, through work, so he bites back his pride and goes to visit his sister.

He doesn't go to Jessie, though, because she married her high school sweetheart, so what the hell would she know about heartbreak?

* * *

Rachel doesn't die of shock when he calls her to inform her he's in town, but it's a near thing.

"Are you dying? Is someone dying?" She jokes, fake-horrified, but agrees to meet him for dinner after work.

* * *

"I'm not sure this isn't some sort of stress-induced dream." She says at dinner. "Since when do you and I just _hang_, without Jess or Mom there to mediate?"

"Are _you_ going to pull my hair or dunk my toothbrush into the toilet if we have a disagreement? Surely we've grown up at least a little." At least, he hopes they have.

"I suppose." She drinks her wine and looks at the menu. "So what's up that you felt the need to see me, brother of mine?"

"What's up with _you_?" Arthur turns the question around. "Jess said you were… getting serious about some guy." He tries not to sound incredulous, because that's a sure way to set Rachel off.

Apparently, she's not on as much of a hair-trigger now, since she only shakes her head and replies, words clipped. "We broke up."

"Oh." Two minutes in and he's already put his foot in it."Are you… are you alright?" He asks, feeling awkward, because he's not sure he's ever asked her that question before and meant it. He's not sure he's going to get a real answer, but he figures he'll at least try, because she's obviously trying to grow up past how they used to be, at each other's throats all the time, so he may as well.

She sighs. "I guess. I don't know. Luke wanted more commitment from me than I was ready to give. I guess he got sick of waiting."

Arthur's not sure what to say. Anything sympathetic he says might come out sounding patronising and fake. He does sympathise, but he doesn't really know Rachel anymore, so it would be stupid to pretend to be involved in her life.

He settles for: "I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"Yeah. Well. Maybe next time." Rachel smiles wryly. "And you? What's up in your life? Or is it all top secret?"

"I think I'm getting old." Arthur admits, suddenly, and he hadn't realised he'd been thinking it till he's said it. "Not old, really, but not so young anymore, either."

One of the rare things about Rachel that he's always appreciated is that when she's not being a brat, she won't to try to pull that statement apart until Arthur follows up. Jess would ask _how, what, why, where_, but Rachel will only watch him carefully as he gathers his thoughts and spills everything. Probably works wonders for interviewing witnesses.

"I lost my best friend." Arthur admits. "And it's been a while since then, but it's only just started to get to me, how alone I am."

Fifteen years ago Rachel would have laughed at him and told him that's because no one would want to be friends with a loser like him, and he would have replied by asking if she got picked last for teams in gym again.

Now, she only watches him, face unreadable.

"I suppose I should say that it will all be okay in the end, huh?" She finally says. "But you know what's in my head instead? That old rhyme, how does it go, _Life's a bitch and then you die, so fuck the world, and let's get high._"

"Aren't you supposed to advise your clients _not_ to do drugs?" Arthur muses.

"Nah, I only advise them not to get caught, and not to tell me anything that may preclude me from representing them." She waves a dismissive hand. "And anyway, you're not my client."

"Well," Arthur says, because the only illicit substance he intends to partake in future is Somancin, but he agrees with the rest of the statement, "life's a bitch, alright."

Rachel lifts up her glass to toast with a crooked smile and Arthur mirrors the motion. "To life – that duplicitous whore."

"To life." Arthur agrees wryly.

* * *

After dinner, they walk back to Rachel's flat and have some more wine.

"My problem," Rachel slurs a little as she shakes off the ash clinging to her cigarette over the balcony railing, "is that I didn't want to end up committing to a person who runs out on me, and Luke couldn't handle the fact that I couldn't commit, so he ran out on me. Can you see my problem, Arthur?"

"But how will you _ever_ know for sure?" Arthur argues. He's a little sloshed, but not enough that he's accepted Rachel's offer of a smoke just yet. "You won't. So you're just shooting yourself in the foot by precluding the possibility. Better to have loved and lost, and all that."

She snorts. "Since when are you the romantic, brother dearest? Did Jessica pass the torch while I wasn't looking?"

"I'm not a romantic." Arthur denies. "I am so far from romantic, I'm not even in the same galaxy. I know full well that love is nothing but your brain flooding your body which happy chemicals in the first few weeks, after which you're too emotionally attached to leave. I know full well that there's no such thing as soul mates or true love. I know all that just fine. But I also know that the only way you can keep living is to lie to yourself and to allow your body all its biological happy-triggers; like eating, sex, relationships, sleep-ins, whatever. Those little things are the only things that make life worth it."

"Right, right, so you're a hedonist now." Rachel nods condescendingly. "I suppose that explains fully why you've sacrificed your life to the government."

Arthur hesitates, and then realises that of all his family, Rachel – assuming she's not a vindictive teenager anymore – is the most likely to actually keep secrets. He finally gives in to the temptation of smoking and takes a cancer stick from the pack balanced on the balcony railing.

"I haven't, actually. I got out. A few years ago now. I'm more in… the private sphere now."

Rachel passes over the lighter and Arthur occupies a moment in lighting the cigarette against the breeze.

"If you're not stuck in a government contract, why the hell are you still doing whatever it is you're doing? Why don't you get out and have a normal life?"

He hands back the lighter and takes a deep pull from the cigarette, fighting the urge to cough because Rachel smokes the hard-core stuff and he hasn't touched anything with nicotine in it in a long time.

"Because I actually like it." He confesses. "I'm good at it – really, truly good at it, you know – in the way that makes you feel like you've got everything completely under control and everyone else is playing on your terms? I feel at home. It's dangerous, sure, but mostly everything turns out okay, and the good outweighs the bad. I like it; it keeps me sane."

She laughs and reaches for her wine glass. "Well, I can't fault you for that, I suppose. Luke wanted me to pick him over the job, you know, couldn't understand why I would drop everything to go into work when there was an urgent matter. He'd say: 'it's only a job', and 'you should work to live, not live to work' – but he didn't get it, did he? That sometimes work _is _a part of your life. Not the only part, sure, but an important part nonetheless."

Arthur smiles crookedly into the night. "_'If you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life.'_"

"Exactly." Rachel nods emphatically. "Life is a dark, lonely thing, and if you can find something that keeps you happy, why would you not grab hold of it with both hands?"

He laughs. "You know, Jess said something like that, but she was talking about people, and about love."

"Yeah, well, she would." Rachel grumbles lightly. "We can't all meet the loves of our life in kindergarten."

"High school." Arthur corrects without thinking, only instead of flying off the handle at the correction like she would have in the past, Rachel only waves her cigarette at him dismissively.

"The point is, she, too, is a workaholic. She just doesn't realise it, because for all that woman-empowerment crap she spouts off at me about the power of the uterus, she doesn't get that being a mom and a housewife _is_ her career, and she fucking loves is. It fulfils her. Her little cake business, that's just once _aspect_ of her real job. So she's really no different to me, except that she has a husband and kids, and I only have Billy."

Arthur kindly doesn't point out that Jessie may take offence at her children being compared to a smelly, elderly pug.

"We could be like her, though, you know." Arthur says. "We just need to stop being such anal perfectionists with high standards. And at least one of us needs to stop falling for people who are obviously ill-suited to us."

Rachel chuckles. "Speaking of which, are you finally going to share your sob story, or am I going to have to go inside to grab another bottle?"

"Nothing much to tell." He shrugs. "I had a thing for a… colleague, had successfully ignored it for a few years, then some things happened, and I made the mistake of thinking that friendship plus compatibility plus sex could equal a relationship."

Rachel sighs into her wine. "And this is why I wish that all romantic entanglements came with a written contract. No crossed wires or misunderstandings, that way, or at least less of them. Did you at least get a reason? No interested in a relationship, or in you, specifically?"

"'In me, specifically?' Wow, you sure know how to make me sound like a great catch, sis." Arthur retorts.

"Oh, shut up, you know perfectly well how I mean it." She sighs tiredly. "Well, which was it?"

He butts out the cigarette in the pot plant hanging next to him, and ignores the baleful glare Rachel sends him for daring sully her plant with ash. "I don't know. I didn't really get a chance to ask. But it was clear either way that the answer was a loud and resounding no."

"Well you're a moron for not asking anyway. How are you supposed to try for a review of a decision if you don't get the reasons?"

"Rach," Arthur says mildly, "you do realise that you can't actually appeal things in real life, right?"

"People change their minds all the time, smartass. What do you call that, if not an overturned earlier decision? You just need to destroy any supposed grounds for their decision point by point, and _bam!_ They haven't a leg to stand on anymore. You still need grounds for appeal, though, you can't just complain because you don't like the decision."

Arthur grins because okay, now that Rachel isn't a bratty teenager, her argumentativeness is more disciplined and linear, so that she's actually presenting a more or less good (albeit drunk) debate, rather than just yelling really loudly because somehow that will make her more right. The legal industry has been good for her. She's probably surrounded by people even more impossible than her every day, and has had to adjust, to make herself into someone who doesn't make enemies just by saying hello.

"You're much less unlikeable than I remember." Arthur admits.

Instead of getting mad, because yeah, okay, that may have been rather a backhanded compliment, she only snorts. "I'm sorry, I am going to have to claim exclusive rights to double negatives. I have a piece of paper hanging on my wall giving me permission to use them – do you?"

Arthur lets out a huff of laughter. Just goes to show that he's right about her – time was, she'd have reacted rather more fiercely. He supposes that maybe it goes both ways, because there was a time that he would have taken her reply as a dig at his lack of tertiary education and then they would have been at it like cats and dogs.

"I don't think it's the sort of thing one just _asks_, you know." He says, continuing the conversation about his abysmal excuse of a love-life. "'_Excuse me, why don't you like me enough to go steady?_' kind of sounds needy and clingy, if you ask me."

"Yeah..." Rachel trails off, staring out into the night. "Pity humans don't come with a little window to their soul, you know, so that you could see if throwing yourself at someone's feet would come off as being brave enough to sacrifice your pride for love, or just creepy and lame."

"It's never like it is in the movies, is it?" Arthur agrees. "In real life, stopping people at the airport and at the altar is just irritating and wastes everyone else's time."

"And yet somehow, humanity hasn't died out yet, despite all odds."

"Especially considering all the pre-nup and divorce lawyers around trying their darndest to make it even harder for everyone." Arthur ribs.

Rachel only laughs. "I would argue, but you're probably right. And anyway, I steer clear of family law. The blind leading the blind, and all that."

He shakes his head. "Mother would be in conniptions, to hear you quoting the New Testament."

"Like you haven't done far worse to send her over the edge." Rachel replies and Arthur laughs because she doesn't even know the half of it, but she's so, so right.

* * *

Arthur wakes up the next morning on Rachel's couch with a dull headache and a dog slobbering all over his face.

He pushes Billy off of himself and goes to get some water.

Rachel has already left for work, but there's a note on the kitchen table next to a bottle of Tylenol.

_There's OJ in the fridge, but not much else, sorry._

_Don't be a lamer, your shitty crush isn't worth crying to your little sister about. Go out, pick up, move the hell on._

_PS, don't get shot or anything. I don't care how much you like you job, I'm too young to go to your funeral just yet, and anyway, black is a bit last season._

Arthur rolls his eyes, because of course Rachel's still incapable of admitting she gives a damn. He can kind of see where that fellow of hers must have been coming from, but only because he probably wasn't fluent enough in Rachel-speak to understand that things like _don't you dare get blood on my carpet_ really mean _I love you and don't want you do die_.

* * *

Arthur gets a message from a contact offering a job in London, and he accepts, because Eames carefully and inexplicably avoids London at all costs, so Arthur is safe there without having to ask who else is in on the job.

He leaves a short note thanking Rachel for the company and the loan of the couch, and takes a taxi to his hotel room to pick up his things before he heads to the airport.

* * *

Three months pass after the Wisniewski job.

He visits his sisters over New Year's, and Jessie keeps her promise of not inviting their mother while Arthur's there. Rachel brings a new boyfriend and tries half-heartedly to talk to Arthur about his private life.

In January, Arthur decides it's time to buck up and accepts a job from Zoe, knowing full well that she's also got Eames recruited.

He figures, _he's_ fine with working with Eames, and Eames is the dickhead who made everything awkward, so he damn well better be fine with it to. He doesn't warn Eames of his presence, and doesn't say anything to Zoe to make her think _she_ needs to warn Eames either.

Arthur is carefully watching the door with his peripheral vision when Eames is meant to show up, and the moment Eames freezes and the smirk slips off his face is almost worth all the angst of avoiding him the last few months.

Eames is distant, but polite. He doesn't passive-aggressively pick fights like he does when he's angry at someone, he doesn't get defensive and prickly if Arthur says anything to him that could possibly be construed as insulting. Not that Arthur is trying to be insulting, but sometimes his mouth bypasses his brain when he's talking shop, and he shoots down ideas without regards to the feelings of their creator.

But this time, whatever Arthur says or does, Eames just smiles vacantly and nods.

Zoe's never been the oblivious sort, but she's distracted because her kid is sick with chicken pox so she's on the phone to her husband half the job, and so doesn't seem to notice that there's anything off between Eames and Arthur. After the job, she apologises and rushes back home to her sick kid, and Eames makes it a point to loudly inform everyone involved that he can't stay around to chat either, he's got something on.

Arthur is the only one left to clear out the last bits and pieces from the office space they were using to do their prep work in.

He finds a newspaper Eames had pretended to read a few days ago, and it falls open to the real estate section when he idly flicks through it.

Arthur thinks of going back to yet another anonymous and dubiously cleaned hotel room and he feels so, so tired. Maybe it's time to get a home base again. He can easily afford a house outright.

He takes the newspaper as some sort of hint from the universe and goes house-hunting. He picks a medium sized town in Colorado that is more or less in between Cobb and Jess's houses, for convenience' sake.

* * *

Three weeks later, he's got the keys to a two hundred year old, two-storey gablefront house with a wrap-around porch. He doesn't _need_ something that big, but after spending the last decade in army barracks or closed off, Ikea-esque hotel rooms, the high ceilings, large rooms and polished wood floors of a 19th century house are refreshing.

He buys a studio piano on a whim, because he used to take lessons as a kid, and now that he isn't forced into it, he finds he actually likes playing. Plus, the house is completely empty and he wants to fill it up a little because with no rugs or carpets to absorb the sound, every step he takes echoes. It makes him feel lonely, but at the same time, he appreciates the peace and quiet, since his nearest neighbour is about 100 metres down the road.

The yard is overgrown, but Arthur finds he likes the wild chaos of it, even if he does plan, once everything thaws, to clear out a small section to plant some herbs in, because if he's going to have a home base with a yard, he's going to actually cook real food sometimes, and the wilted basil that he saw at the local fruit and veg made him want to cry.

For a crazy moment, he even contemplates getting a goldfish or something, but then remembers that pets that don't get fed for a few weeks while their owners are away tend to die.

He doesn't take any work for a few months, and just wastes the days away clearing out the dusty attic, because the previous owners saw fit to leave a whole pile of rubbish up there. He finds a tall silver candle stick holder, and after polishing it, plonks it down onto his newly arrived stained oak dining table. The table is, rather optimistically, an 8-seater, but anything smaller would have looked ridiculous in the huge dining room.

He thinks about inviting Cobb and the kids to come visit his new house, but finds he doesn't really want Cobb intruding on this new place that he's made for himself. He thinks about inviting his sisters, but imagines the kicked-puppy face Jessie would make when she realised her brother had bought a giant, empty house, and that there's no one but him to fill it. He imagines the pitying look Rachel might share with her new boyfriend.

He decides not to invite anyone just yet.

* * *

**Notes:** So this chapter was just basically me self-indulgently playing house. I am sorry. WE WILL RESUME THE REGULAR PROGRAMMING SOON.

Also, I don't know what's with all the doom and gloom either. Ask Arthur. GDI, Arthur.


	26. Part 13-2

**Notes:** Parker is not Leverage's Parker. She shares a name and the blonde hair, but she's the complete anti-Parker.

* * *

The next time Arthur works with Eames goes much like the last, except careful politeness has been swapped to careful almost-friendliness. He starts to relax. If they can go back to acting like they used to, he can maybe trick his brain into thinking that nothing ever happened to upset the status quo in the first place.

At the end of the job, Eames actually approaches Arthur and actually looks him in the eye when he speaks, smirking slightly. "Perfectly planned and executed, as always."

It sounds like it's meant to be a compliment, but there's something in Eames' tone that suggests he's actually trying to say something else altogether. There's a sense of expectation to him. He's waiting for Arthur to either reply in kind or to bite his head off.

"The best kind of job is the kind that goes smoothly." Arthur agrees neutrally, and he's not going to pick a fight, but he's not going to give an inch, either.

"Do you… fancy getting a drink?"

Arthur pauses where he's collecting his things. "A drink?"

"Well." Eames hedges. "Or whatever."

Arthur turns around to face him, incredulity no doubt written all over his face. "Or 'whatever'? I'm going to need a little more to go on."

Eames grimaces. "Sex, Arthur. I mean sex. Are we going to have to have the birds and the bees talk?"

"We're going to have to have the what-the-fuck-are-we-doing talk, actually." Arthur answers sharply. "You do understand the 'one' part of one-night stand, don't you?"

"My apologies," Eames sneers, "I had forgotten that I was speaking to Mister-follow-the-fucking-rules-if-it-kills-him."

"And _I_ had forgotten that I was speaking to someone who thinks himself _above_ any rules." Arthur snaps back.

Eames glares in response. "Oh? would you like to share this rulebook you have for How To Sleep With Your Coworkers And Not Be Eviscerated With A Rusty Spoon Afterwards sometime?"

Arthur realises he's clenched his fists. He uncurls them and tries to let go of his irritation. This isn't how this conversation was supposed to go.

"Look," he tries again, "I can pretend that other time never happened, and we can go back to how things were. I can write it off as a drunken mistake. But re-visiting that drunken mistake is not going to help any."

"A drunken mistake." Eames repeats, voice flat.

Arthur sighs. "It happened, it's fine, whatever. This isn't regret or second thoughts or anything. But I'm not looking for a drunken hook-up, or, worse yet, a _repeat_ of a drunken hook-up. I'm tired of drunken hook-ups."

Eames steps back, aggression draining from his pose. "You're looking for more."

Arthur busies himself with his things again. "Something like that."

"I don't… _do_ relationships." Eames answers, hesitant and apologetic.

"I'd figured." Arthur responds after a moment.

"If I did…" Eames starts, hesitantly, "if I did, I would try. If I tried for anyone-"

He cuts himself off.

"Then why don't you?" Arthur hears himself ask, and he hadn't _meant_ to say that – had been thinking it, but hadn't actually been planning to _say_ it – only somehow his mouth bypassed his brain and went ahead and did it anyway.

The question sits uncomfortably in the air between them.

"I don't get attached." Eames finally says, voice low. "I just don't. I'm not repeating that mistake again."

"So you think that just because one time didn't turn out well, you should never try again?" Arthur asks incredulously, because seriously, his high school science teacher would have an infarction from that sort of poor data sampling. "If so, you're a lot stupider than I gave you credit for."

"My personal history is none of your business." Eames insists stubbornly. "All you need to know is that I don't do relationships."

"Fine. You know what, do whatever you want. I guess that's your prerogative." Arthur concedes grimly, because you can drag a horse to water, you can push its head into the trough, you can _drown_ the poor fucker in it – but no way in hell can you force it – against its will – to take a drink.

Eames doesn't respond.

Arthur sighs and turns to leave. "Whatever, it's not my business. Do whatever. I'll- I'll see you around."

Eames only answers when Arthur's pushing through the door.

"Yeah. I'll see you." He echoes.

* * *

After the long flight back from the job, Arthur experiences the unfamiliar joy of dropping his keys in the key dish in the hallway of his house that is not a hotel room.

The house still smells the same, a smell he'd stopped noticing while there, but that two weeks of hotels had renewed him to. It still smells novel and not quite like 'home', but it's getting there. He's used to the hot and cold taps in the downstairs bathroom being around the wrong way, he's used to the fact that the back door needs a bit of a hip-bump to lock properly, he's used to the different ways in which each step on the stairs creaks. It's familiar and reassuring in its sameness.

It's nice to be home, and to have somewhere he can _call_ home.

* * *

For all that he's glad to be back, he's not going to coop himself up inside again. For one thing, there's only so much housework he can do before he goes crazy, and for another, maybe he's a tiny part of him that is angry at Eames and his '_I don't do relationships_', and Arthur wants to go out and forget all about him and his stupid truckload of head-issues. And his own issues too – those same issues that lead to Arthur not opening up to anyone in half a decade and then picking the least available person to ever walk the earth to fixate on.

On Saturday night, he digs out some less formal clothes and goes out. He's still in a suit, but he's undone a few of the top buttons of the shirt and he leaves his jacket at the cloakroom of the bar in town he's picked.

There are no screaming teenagers with fake IDs, and that's exactly the reason Arthur picked this place. He was over the screaming teenager scene even when he was one himself.

He's parked at the bar and has barely taken a sip of his drink when a woman with long blonde hair slides into the seat next to him.

"You're rather better dressed than most people passing through." She says without preamble, smiling. She's got grey eyes and a pale skin tone that makes Arthur think the peroxide-white hair is actually natural.

"What makes you think I'm passing through?" He asks, smiling back.

She laughs. "Aside from the fact that the only locals I've seen dressed that well were lawyers, accountants or about to be married? The fact that you're in this bar and you don't know that it's the out-of-towners hang out spot is plenty proof."

"But you're a local." Arthur deduces. "And yet you're here."

"Well," she grins, "I already know all the people in this town. Sometimes you have to switch it up a little."

"At this point, I'd like to state for the record that I _do_ actually live here. Sort of. Some of the time, anyway."

"Pleased to meet you, Sort-Of-Live-Here." Her eyes are sparkling with amusement. "My name's Parker."

"I'm Arthur." He doesn't give her a fake name, because anyone who is a threat to him and gets this close is already practically in Arthur's back yard. Plus, keeping his aliases straight has never been Arthur's strong suit. "Nice to meet you, Parker."

"Well then. Now that we have names out of the way. Do you want to get out of here, Arthur?" Parker asks, looking him up and down with a smirk.

He's supposed to be here to, in Rachel's words, go out, pick up, move the hell on – but he's so over one-night stands, and Parker seems smart, funny, interesting, so Arthur takes a gamble and parries with: "Do you want to have dinner?"

She blinks at him, startled.

Arthur wonders if he's miscalculated.

"Oh, honey," She starts, apologetic, "I'm married."

"Married." Arthur repeats, wondering if he's hallucinated the part where she'd just asked him to leave with her.

"I'm- yeah. I mean, it's an open relationship, but yeah, I'm married." Parker lifts a hand up to nervously fiddle with a lock of hair, trying hard to look casual.

"Isn't the whole point of an open marriage that it's, well, _open_?" Arthur asks without fully meaning to.

Parker's mouth flattens into an unhappy line. "Not ours. Not like that."

"Oh." Arthur says, and is only vaguely disappointed. He's not sure he'd be up for being part of a love triangle, anyway. He's been described as a one-man dog, once. He's pretty sure it was meant as an insult, but he's not sure they were wrong.

She turns to the bar, but she doesn't get up and leave.

"Sorry." She says after a moment. "I guess I should have said straight up. It's just that whenever I bring it up, people tend to ask for threesomes."

Arthur huffs a laugh out. "What makes you think I sill won't?"

She turns back to him and there's a slight smile there now. "You seem like a good guy."

"I'm not. There's nothing 'nice' or 'kind' about me." Arthur argues.

"I didn't say 'nice'," Parker points out, "I said 'good'. There's a difference. 'Nice' doesn't mean anything, really. 'Nice' means afraid of being disliked. 'Nice' means being afraid to be harsh when it's needed. 'Good' means doing what's right regardless of whether you're praised for it."

"This is a bit deep for bar talk, isn't it?" Arthur asks, curious. "Surely I haven't been out of the scene long enough that this has become standard?"

Parker laughs. "Nah, that's just me. Sorry, I get thinky sometimes."

"No, it's fine." Arthur says, a little distracted from the conversation because he's realising he's actually starting to like her. "I like thinky."

"Still married over here." She points out, but laughingly.

Arthur lets himself smile, but there's a melancholy edge to it. "That's okay. I'm pretty sure I'm on the rebound, anyway, and in no fit state to drag someone else into my issues."

"Well, then," Parker takes a sip of her drink, "I guess that makes us the perfect pair. You actually _should_ come over for dinner sometime. I wasn't joking when I said I'm over all the locals."

"You proposition me, reject me, and then ask me out, all in one conversation?" Arthur replies, mock outraged.

She giggles. "I sound like a monster when you put it that way."

He stops to actually think about it. He likes her, and she likes him, and they're both emotionally taken, and they could bitch about their respective guy problems or their girl problems or whatever and not make it weird.

"I suppose I could." He says, playing at long-suffering. "But if your partner beats me up for it, _you_ can pay my medical bills."

"Amrita wouldn't beat you up." Parker assures. "She'd ruin your credit rating and get the bank to foreclose on your house, but she wouldn't ruin her nails by actually hitting someone."

"Well, then, the joke's on her," Arthur replies, "since I don't have a mortgage anyway."

"Oh, a renter." She sighs sympathetically. "I feel your pain, I really do. I am so glad I can finally put picture hooks in the walls without written permission in triplicate."

Arthur doesn't correct her about his property title. "You know, there's probably something a bit weird about planning dinner parties in a bar."

"Oh, I know. Apparently I have no sense of the appropriate time and place for anything. One time, my mother caught me drawing on the pews during church."

"To be fair, religious gatherings can be boring for kids." Arthur tries to argue.

Parker winces. "Well. It was my grandpa's funeral. And I wasn't a kid, I was twenty three."

"Oh." Arthur says and then laughs, because he kind of has a shitty sense of propriety, too.

He immediately feels bad, though, and apologises.

"Nah," Parker waves him away. "Grandpa would have found it funny too."

* * *

A week later, he really does go over to visit Parker.

"Nice to meet you, Arthur." Amrita says, and she's tiny, much shorter than Parker's 5'6", and she sounds demure and polite, but underneath the soft exterior of huge brown eyes and a floral patterned dress, there's an immovable sense of stone, like she wouldn't budge for a tidal wave.

He's glad he didn't actually end up sleeping with Parker, because open marriage or no, Amrita is not someone he wants to get on the wrong side of, combat training or no.

Over dinner, Parker finds out which house Arthur actually lives in, and immediately invites herself over.

"She's cuckoo for old houses." Amrita confides while Parker takes their dishes away, humming to herself. "She actually wanted to buy the old Johnson house herself, but it was a bit out of our price range. You should know," Amrita warns, "now that you've invited her in, she's not just going to leave. She'll probably re-varnish your floors for you while you're at work or something. She has very strong feelings about interior decorating."

"Is that what you do?" Arthur asks a returning Parker.

"Decorating? Oh, no." She sets down a fresh bottle of wine on the table and sits back down. "I'm-"

"-a painter." Amrita interrupts firmly.

Parker makes a face. "I was going to say, I'm an unemployed bum, but sure, I paint sometimes, and sometimes I get paid actual money for it, too."

And then comes the awkward part – the reason it's hard to make civilian friends:

"-and what do you do, Arthur?" Amrita turns her steady gaze to him.

The words spill out without prompting and it's something Eames once filled out as his occupation, as a joke. "I'm, uh, in market research. Freelancing consultant."

It's a good fake job, because it's not even technically a lie, but ambiguous enough that it could mean anything from advertising to corporate espionage.

Parker snorts. "That sounds awful. I am so sorry for you. And for all you other chumps stuck in nine-to-fives."

"Well, I'm not really a nine-to-five." Arthur admits. "My jobs are kind of all over the place. I'll go for weeks sitting around on my butt."

Parker's eyes sparkle. "Fantastic. You can help me carry things at the hardware store, and I might even let you pick out colours and things."

"I wasn't joking about the redecorating." Amrita mutters. "You have only yourself to blame. Sadly, garlic and crucifixes won't even work, although mixing orange and purple might."

"Actually," Parker interjects, "in certain instances, using secondary colours together is perfectly acceptable. Just not if there are polka dots involved."

This is how Arthur makes friends outside of the army or dreamshare, for the first time in over a decade.

This is also how he comes to know the difference between an angle grinder and a router, and to rue the day he had to learn.


	27. Part 13-3

**Notes:** The line "If you're doing anything embarrassing, now would be the time to stop!" is loosely based on something Juliet says to Holly in _Artemis Fowl_ by Eoin Colfer, which was the first of a fantastic kid's sci-fi/fantasy trilogy.  
THAT'S RIGHT, I SAID 'TRILOGY'. Because the rest were too awful and forced to admit the existence of.

* * *

Arthur takes a day off from the job he's working on Mal's birthday. The rest of his team doesn't comment.

He never calls Dom on this day. Even back when they'd been on the run together, they'd stayed out of each other's way on her birthday. Last year, Arthur had drunk himself into a stupor in a club somewhere in Prague, surrounded on all sides by people in the futile hope of not feeling quite so alone.

This year he goes under in his hotel room and tries to recreate Mal's library, as she'd shown him that first time he'd met her.

The lighting's all wrong and he can't remember the shapes or the shelves or ladders anymore, but he gets the general gist of it. He doesn't spend long down there, only five minutes in real time, but its long enough that he grows to accept that his subconsciousness is not going to spit Mal back out at him, even as an angry Shade.

He's almost jealous of Dom, in that regard. Sure, that copy of Mal had been nothing like the real thing, had been a desecrated shadow of herself, but to be able to see her at will? That has to count for something.

* * *

After he's done feeling sorry for himself, Arthur picks himself up from the musty corner he's been sitting in and dreams himself up a gun to shoot out of the dream with.

He's not going to return to the dream-library. He'd only wanted to say goodbye.

* * *

Arthur goes for months without seeing Eames. He hears about him, sometimes, but he also hears about Ariadne and Cobb and others he knows in the business. The gossip mill is what keeps the world turning.

Ariadne's graduated and trying to balance an honest job with dreamshare. Arthur has succeeded in convincing her she doesn't need to do shady work anymore, and has given her the name of a contact he knows who can procure her a PASIV of her own because it's not like she can just give up dreaming, not now that she's had a nice long taste of what it can be like.

She's not really Arthur's responsibility, not his to take care of – except for how she is, a little bit. He thinks of Mal and how maybe if he'd watched out a little better for her, she might still be here. He tries not to think of Ariadne as a stand-in for Mal and goes out of his way to make sure she's okay. If anyone asks: he and Cobb dragged her into this mess, it's their job to watch out for her.

She does seem okay, for the most part. Sometime Arthur has to talk her down from some crazier ideas, and eventually convinces Cobb to part with Mal's dream journals (and by 'convinces', he really means 'steals while Cobb is busy taking bubble gum out of Phillipa's hair') so that Ariadne can at least not repeat the same mistakes Dom and Mal made in their experiments.

* * *

Cobb himself has finally stopped chaffing at the bit. He still dreams, Arthur suspects, but he's hidden his PASIV well enough that even Arthur can't find it, which is good, because he knows that small children are an industrious lot and have had many pre-chistmases and pre-birthdays worth of experience in finding things around the house.

Cobb doesn't need those questions just yet. Ideally, he will never have to tell his children what a PASIV is. It's a dangerous game; both the dangers within and without, and the kids don't need that. Nobody does, but the rest of them are already neck-deep in it. Now all they can do is to try to keep afloat.

* * *

Arthur's has been staying away from jobs Eames is on, and Eames seems to be returning the courtesy.

* * *

By late summer, Arthur can tell himself he's forgotten all about the mess they made of their professional relationship, which is why he doesn't object when a last minute injury takes the third member of their team out and Zoe calls Eames.

"He asked me if you were okay with this." Zoe comments afterwards, watching Arthur intently. "I didn't know that had been in question. I don't want to work with the two of you if you're going to be at each other's throats, you know."

"We're fine." Arthur replies firmly. "He's just being polite. It's fine. If he's fine with it, I'm fine with it."

"Hm." Zoe says. "You should say 'fine' one more time, just to make sure I'm convinced."

* * *

It _is_ fine, when Eames gets there.

They're back to carefully polite, though Zoe watches them like a hawk, which Arthur pretends to ignore.

The job proceeds quicker than planned – because if Arthur is willing to admit it, Eames is better than the guy he was replacing, and three people at the top of their game are much better than two plus one who's barely managing to keep up.

It _is_ fine - until it isn't.

* * *

Arthur calls Cobb to remind him that Phillipa's birthday is in two weeks.

"Just because she asked for a real live pony doesn't mean she actually needs one, Cobb." Arthur patiently explains. "Stop trying to buy her love."

"But those eyes! You haven't seen the eyes she makes!"

"Pretty sure I know _exactly_ who she learned those eyes from." Arthur snorts. "Just because she wants something doesn't mean she should get it_._"

"You never got nice things as a child and so you don't want anyone else to, either." Cobb says meanly.

Arthur generously doesn't point out that he is doing exactly what Cobb wants him to do: talking him out of buying his six-year-old a horse.

"Maybe riding lessons are a better idea." Arthur suggests lightly.

"Well. Yeah. Okay." Cobb grudgingly admits. "I hadn't thought of that."

Before they wind up the conversation, Arthur asks, because it's his duty as Dom's unofficial keeper:

"Have you been using the PASIV?"

There's a guilty pause. "A little."

Arthur sighs. "You really shouldn't, you know. If you stop for long enough, you might be able to get regular dreaming back. You've got kids, you can't just go under – god knows _what_ might happen while you're unconscious."

"I know that." Cobb replies, sulkily. "It's only sometime. I'm using it less and less."

"Well." Arthur starts lamely. "Good. I guess. Don't make me come over there and take that thing away from you."

"Says you." Cobb retorts. "Isn't there that saying about the pot and the kettle?"

"_I'm_ not the one who's had a problem with dreaming in the past, and I'm also not the one with two children in the house." Arthur points out.

He's met with a stony silence from Cobb's end.

"Look," Arthur sighs, "just be careful, okay? I feel like I'm always having this conversation with the two of you."

He doesn't realise til he's said it that he's referring to the last conversation he'd ever had with Mal.

"Dom?" He asks hesitantly. "Don't go looking for her. She's gone. Let her stay that way."

"Yeah." Cobb breathes. "Yeah, okay."

* * *

That evening, Arthur gets all the way back to his hotel room before he realises he's forgotten his notebook. He heads three floors down and lets himself back into the room they've booked to work in, not expecting anyone to still be there.

The lights are all still off, except for one. It's the lamp above one of the recliners they've been using to do practice dream runs in. There's an empty bottle of vodka lying open on the floor and Eames is in the recliner, plugged into the PASIV.

_Shit_, Arthur thinks, and flashes back to every single time he's ever found Cobb like this: secretively, furtively sneaking in dream-time to go see Mal.

It's not his business what Eames does with his spare time, but they're on the job, and Eames is using Zoe's PASIV and Somnacin, and he's potentially putting all three of them at risk if whatever this is bleeds over into the job they're scheduled to do next week.

This has nothing to do with their personal bullshit and everything to do with the job and Arthur's own safety, he rationalises. Eames doesn't _get_ the luxury of secrets – not after Dom brought along a murderous ghost, not after seven people almost ended up in limbo forever.

Secrets are out, as far as Arthur's concerned.

He draws out a second needle from the PASIV, steels his resolve, and plugs himself in.

* * *

He's in a corridor.

It's dark down his end, but there's light coming in on the other end.

"Eames!" Arthur yells out. "If you're doing anything embarrassing, now would be the time to stop!"

It's pretty lame, as far as disclaimers go, but it's the best he can do. He's done ignoring potential problems in the hope that they go away. Better Eames gets shitty with him for violating his privacy than Arthur and Zoe end up dead because of some baggage Eames dragged in.

He walks to the other end of the corridor, and out into a kitchen, where the light is coming from. There's a pot boiling on the stove and the oven is on. Arthur can smell something chocolatey baking.

He pushes the screen door open to the back porch, where the sun is either setting or rising.

There are two figures sitting in wicker armchairs on the porch, backs to Arthur.

One of them turns around at the squeak of the door, and by the light from inside the house, Arthur sees that it's Eames.

The corner of his mouth lifts when he recognises Arthur. "And the whole gang's here. Fantastic."

Eames is younger, Arthur notices. He's scrawnier, his hair's buzzed short, and his pose is all elbows and knees. He's not so aloof and arrogant here as he is in reality, here he's only a kid: eyes bright even as his face is half-hidden in shadow.

Arthur's never thought about Eames as a teenager. He realises that everyone must have been that young once – even Cobb – but it's hard to imagine. To Arthur, Eames has always been a self-assured, untouchable asshole. Now suddenly, he's more human than Arthur's ever seen him.

"Hey." Arthur says, warily. "Sorry to barge in. I was just- concerned."

Eames lets out a quiet huff of laughter to himself and he's changed again. His hair's a little longer now, his shoulders a bit broader.

"I suppose introductions are in order." Eames drawls. "Arthur, Clyde. Clyde, Arthur."

'Clyde' turns around. He's more heavily built than teenage Eames, probably more so than even adult Eames. Brown hair, light eyes, mid-twenties.

Up in reality, Eames and Arthur are the only ones plugged into the PASIV.

Clyde gives Arthur the once-over, nodding knowingly. "Oh, he looks like the stick-up-the-arse-type, doesn't he? That's what you go for now, old boy? I'm disappointed."

"And now I'm thinking I was right to be worried." Arthur tells Eames, pointedly. "After all that fuss about Cobb, you're down here, visiting your ex, or whatever. Is this going to be a problem, Eames?"

"Shit." Eames says, face clearing into careful blankness, and aging back to his usual self, hair and all. He gets up from his chair and steps abortively towards Arthur. "You're the real deal."

Arthur blinks. "The real- yes, of course I'm the real deal! And I'm a little alarmed you can't tell the difference between a person and a projection. Am I going to have another Cobb on my hands?"

"I'd like to remind you," Eames replies coldly, "that I was the one who warned you that Cobb wasn't playing with a full deck!"

"Yeah, well, sometimes like recognises like!" Arthur throws back at him.

"This is nothing like Cobb!" Eames protests. "You don't even know what's going on here, and yet here you are, making accusations left, right and centre!"

"I'm not an ex, by the way." Clyde interjects, from where he's been left behind in his chair, hand waving in the air for attention. "You know, just putting that out there."

Arthur turns to look at him, having forgotten about him completely, because as he's not a real person and therefore doesn't get a say, and arguing in front of him doesn't mean anything because he's just a part of Eames' mind.

"Even if I swayed that way, I'd have better taste than _that_." Clyde continues, seemingly unfazed by the tempers flaring around him.

"No you wouldn't." Eames retorts, anger melting into fond exasperation. "I'd be the best shot you'd have with any half-decent guy."

Clyde snorts. "Jailbait is what you'd be, kiddo."

Arthur's not as ready to let go of the argument. "Eames. I don't care who he is. The problem is that you're inside your own head, playing tea parties with a figment of your own imagination."

"Tea parties." Clyde laughs. "You know, he tried that once. Last time I ever let him conspire with my baby sister."

Arthur redirects his attention to Clyde. He's based on a real person This is someone who'd actually known Eames way back when. There's a part of Arthur that wants to get to know Clyde, to ask him about how Eames used to be, to share a part of Eames' life that Eames himself will never willingly part with.

He squashes down the curiosity. Curiosity is a known killer, and he's not going down that road. Arthur's invested too much into Eames already, he can't let go if he's busy digging for more.

"This isn't going the way of Cobb, if that's what you're asking." Eames admits grudgingly. "This is a one-off visit. Clyde would have been forty, today. I just needed to revel in the nostalgia a bit."

Arthur stays silent, because he's hardly one to pass judgments about dreaming to say goodbye to old friends.

"I've known him since he was yea high." Clyde supplies, fondly. "He used to follow me around like a little shadow."

Eames throws a vaguely irritated glance at Clyde. "We were old friends, if you must know, Arthur. Got arrested together. Joined the army together. Got shot together. Only then I made it and he didn't, and I had to explain that to his widow."

There's a careful flatness to Eames' words.

Arthur thinks there's a parallel here, to him and Mal, but he doesn't want to pursue that thought any further.

"This stuff can become your life if you let it." Arthur says instead, voice low, trying for kindness. "All it takes is a little regret, a bit of longing, and some nostalgia – all of a sudden you've built yourself the best trap anyone could think off. Totems are no use if you're the one who's built yourself the dream."

"I know that." Eames says. "Don't you think I know that? Jesus, Arthur, you're like the mother who finds her kids nicking sherry from the pantry and she's started lecturing them about the perils of drugs and prostitution!"

"To be fair," Arthur argues, possibly somewhat beside the point, "the underlying problems that lead to alcoholism can also lead to drugs, and expensive drug habits can lead to prostitution – so she wouldn't be wrong. An ounce of prevention and all that."

"Well, consider me thoroughly warned." Eames replies snidely. "I'll be sure to consult you on every personal decision I make, in future."

"It's not personal if it can affect me or Zoe." Arthur argues hotly, having lost any patience he might have had. "Have you forgotten the Fischer job already?"

"And have I not pointed out the inherent hypocrisy in _you _using Cobb and his demons against _me_?"

"That doesn't make me any less right!"

"I'm not going to secretly drug the two of you!" Eames throws his hands up in the air. "And if you take limbo out of the equation, the worst thing my personal demons can do to you is still only the tip of the iceberg that was Mal! I just wanted to say good bye to my best mate, not relive my glory days with my wife over whose death I feel an inordinate amount of guilt!"

Something about that, about the way Eames talks about his demons affecting Arthur, sparks something in Arthur's brain.

"This is him, isn't it?" Arthur asks, astonished. "This guy, here, is why you don't get attached? Your friend got shot, and you couldn't deal with the pain again, so you decided to never get close to anyone again? Because if I'm right, Eames, let me tell you – you must be the _stupidest_ person I've ever met."

"My personal life choices are my own." Eames responds coldly. "I'll thank you to remember that."

"It's not about me!" Arthur insists. "It's about you. If nothing else, we were once friends, so yeah, maybe I care a little that you're going to die bitter, miserable and alone just because you're busy worrying that anyone you care about will someday die. But hey, if that's what you want, sure. Go ahead and chose that option. But don't come crying to me the next time you're feeling horny."

He regrets it the instant he's said it, but he's not about to take it back.

"I think we're done here. Don't you?" Eames glares. Clyde, behind him, is silent.

"Yeah. We are." Arthur agrees, and turns around to leave.

Once he's back inside the house, he forges himself a gun and shoots out of the dream.

* * *

Up top, Arthur unplugs himself and vindictively leaves before Eames has a chance to wake up.

Serves him right, to wonder whether the Arthur he'd talked to with had been real after all. Serves him right to wonder whether his argument was so flawed that even his own subconscious was arguing with him.

* * *

They finish the job without further mishap, albeit with painful politeness. Zoe does try to get the story out of first Arthur, and then Eames, but neither of them give in, as far as Arthur can tell.

Arthur desperately wants to ask him: _if you loved your friend enough to go visit him years later inside you own mind, surely you don't regret ever meeting him? How can you deny yourself that?_

He doesn't ask.


	28. Part 14-1

A year passes by and everything moves on.

Zoe quits dreamshare because her kid will be off to kindergarten soon and it's not like she needs the money anymore. Arthur's sorry to see her go.

He takes on a wider range of jobs. He's a good, solid architect, even if his creativity is only ever engaged in building traps and paradoxes. He's not remarkable – probably never will be – but he does alright. Not every job needs the perfection that the Fischer job did, or that other high-stakes jobs do, and Arthur at least can always trust himself to be thorough, and not to screw up a _rug_. Not naming any names.

He doesn't really keep up with the crew from the Fischer job. He sometimes emails Ariadne, and of course he visits Cobb and the kids, but that's it. Sometimes he sees Saito on the news.

The Fischer job had been thrilling at the time, amazing, even, but Arthur doesn't think about it much these days. Extraction is the game: inception is just a dream.

No pun intended.

* * *

Arthur ends up on a blind date, and he's not entirely sure why, but this is how it had happened:

"You're going to die alone." Parker had informed Arthur one day while he'd been trying to figure out the TV she was making him watch. "If you keep doing this all-work-and-no-play thing."

"I play." Arthur had defended himself with a frown. "I'm watching TV right now."

"Yeah, yeah." She had waved him away. "With great _unwillingness_. And TV is hardly going to get you a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Or whatever-floats-your-boat-friend."

"I'm good, thanks." Arthur had grunted.

Ignoring him, Parker had proclaimed: "But don't worry, I know someone who would be right up your alley."

* * *

So that's how he'd ended up in the closest thing the town had to a decent restaurant with a random stranger.

Daniel, the stuffy, self-important type intent only on climbing to CFO on the corpses of his co-workers dominates the conversation all evening.

"-and then he had the audacity to tell me that _I_ was the self-absorbed one! Can you imagine?-"

Arthur gives up on getting a word in edge-wise and spaces in and out of the conversation because while he appreciates that breakups are hard, he doesn't really want to hear about them.

"-of course, by that point I had sold his guitar to some drugged-up teenager, so a reconciliation was probably a bit much to hope for, but there was no need to change the locks on me! What if I'd discovered I'd forgotten something of mine? How was I supposed to get in to reclaim it?"

Arthur can only stare in growing horror.

_This_ is who Parker thought he would get on well with. What the hell does she think of Arthur, that she'd try to set him up with someone like this?

"There's a difference between the cash book and the ledger, and I can't believe they employed someone who doesn't that! I can't have someone working in my department if they don't even know the basics." Daniel says of one of his colleagues at one point.

"This is the cleaner you're talking about." Arthur verifies.

"Yes? So?" Daniel glares. "That's no excuse!"

Arthur doesn't argue, because he's not sure he knows the difference between a cashbook and a ledger either.

He manages to escape the encounter mostly unscathed when Daniel points out that: "You're not very supportive, you know. A future partner should take more interest in my life."

He then sadly informs Arthur that maybe they are not meant to be, and: "I'm truly sorry to disappoint you like this, but clearly Parker doesn't know you that well, to have thought that you're a good match for me."

Arthur breathes a sigh of relief and makes a run for his life.

* * *

"Well, Daniel can get a bit carried away, I admit." Parker chews on her lip when Arthur confronts her. "But I thought you'd like the fact that he's confident and knows what he wants. He's also almost as much of a work-obsessed freak as you are, so I thought you'd at least have _that_ in common!"

Arthur decides he needs to re-evaluate his work-life balance, if _that's_ the sort of person he's coming across as.

"I can try someone else!" Parker claims. "I know someone who's _way_ more laid back than Daniel. Millie is the _definition_ of Zen."

Against his better judgement, Arthur doesn't fight the tidal wave that is Parker on a mission.

* * *

"Cats!" Arthur sneezes into the phone at Parker. "She has cats! Five of them! Fluffy, fur-moulting _cats_."

"Oh. Are you allergic? You didn't tell me you were allergic."

"I'm not allergic!" Arthur glares into the phone and tries not to rub at his eyes for fear of making them any more reddened. "I'm allergic to the _people_ who keep cats!"

"Of course you are." Parker soothes. "Look, I know someone who doesn't have _any_ pets, and okay, maybe kind of a hermit, but that's okay, you're kind of introverted yourself, right?"

"No! No way. No more blind dates."

Parker sighs loudly into the phone. "Pity. And here I was, thinking that you might get along with someone who used to design for, oh, who was it? Brunello Cucinelli?"

Arthur grudgingly breathes out after a moment. "Fine. Fine, one more blind date-"

"I knew it! I'll arrange it now!"

"- but I swear to all that is holy, this one better not be a serial killer or something. Where the hell do you find these people?" He firmly doesn't think about the fact that she probably found them the same way she found him – by force-adopting them off the streets.

* * *

Estefan the fashion designer actually turns out to be a normal human being. A bit quiet and anti-social, sure, but _sane_.

"You know what bothers me?" He asks Arthur casually over coffee (which he drinks black and unsweetened, to Arthur's approval). "That Parker is so busy trying to make everyone else happy, that she forgets about herself."

Arthur's taken aback, because he'd been expecting something like _people with less than three degrees_ or maybe _council restrictions on the number or pets you may keep_ or even _people who buy off-the-rack and think that's adequate_.

"Yeah." Arthur agrees belatedly. "She does seem intent on matchmaking everyone around her. I guess people in relationships think that everyone else would be happy if only they were too."

Estefan watches Arthur with gentle rebuke in his eyes. "I think it's more because she hasn't found what she wants herself, so instead she is trying to live vicariously through others."

"You think she's unhappy with Amrita?" Arthur frowns, because he likes Amrita, even if she is a bit terrifying.

"Perhaps I misspoke." Estefan admits. "I meant rather that Parker has not yet discovered what it is she does want, and therefore is unaware of the fact that she already has it."

"Oh." Arthur says, and suddenly remembers all the times that Parker has made a point of the fact that she's on the market, but never seems to actually get anywhere with anyone else.

"Should we, I don't know, _tell_ her that?" He asks after it's clear that Estefan isn't going to say anything further.

Estefan shrugs helplessly. "I have found that people rarely appreciate even the best intentioned of advice. Would _you_ listen, if someone were to tell you that?"

Arthur pauses to consider and then shakes his head.

"And from what I know of the each of you," Estefan continues, nodding unsurprisedly, "Parker is a lot more stubborn than you, so of course any advice of mine would be futile. No, she has to work it out for herself, or not at all. We can only, in some small way, try to help her find her way for herself."

* * *

"So was the third time the charm?" Parker asks as she opens the door, a little giddy with excitement.

"Well, it was a much better choice, I'll admit that." Arthur concedes as he comes in.

"But…?" Parker prompts, face falling a little and looking cartoonish with the sad little smudge of charcoal she's got on her nose.

"Apparently I'm not his type." Arthur admits grudingly, a bit put out.

Maybe there's something to what Estefan said, about Parker living vicariously, because she's clearly disappointed about the failed matchmaking attempt, and probably more so than Arthur himself.

"What do you mean, not his type?" She asks, sounding devastated and betrayed. "You're great! You're a perfectly good catch! What the hell didn't he like?"

"It's fine. I shall endeavour to move past the heartbreak." He reassures her, trying for comically stoic. "And anyway, it wasn't a total loss – I made a friend, and I got some good stories out of all these dates. But let's never try this blind date thing ever again, okay? If I meet someone, I meet someone, and if I don't, I don't – but I'm not going to go looking for trouble."

She sighs. "Okay. But you have to promise to at least keep your eyes open to the possibility. Love could be waiting for you just around the corner."

"Considering there's a funeral home just around the corner, I don't think so." Arthur responds dryly.

"Well, not if you're going to be a prude about it." She waggles her eyebrows at him.

Arthur should probably be more concerned at what Parker thinks passes for humour.


	29. Part 14-2

Arthur hates Gino. With a passion. But he's kind of over hanging around at home pretending that he has an opinion between Californian poppies and corn poppies because Parker has moved on to planning out his garden for spring, despite the fact that Arthur has protested that he _likes_ it overgrown and naturally wild. So he takes the architect job that Gino offers, because he's going slowly insane, now that his co-worker pool has shrunk to the people who aren't chummy with Eames.

He flies to Winnipeg and laments the much colder spring this far north.

"This is Ahmed." Gino waves when Arthur arrives. "Ahmed, this is Arthur, the architect. Play nice, kids."

Typical Gino, assuming that anyone but he needs to be told to behave professionally.

Ahmed, easily at least five years older than Arthur, stares up at him, wide-eyed and scrambles up out of his seat. "Oh. I hadn't realised you're _that_ Arthur. It's an honour to meet you, sir."

Gino's eyes flicker over at Ahmed in irritation. "Is this going to be a problem?"

"It's fine." Ahmed turns his gaze down at the ground. "No problem."

"Nice to meet you, Ahmed." Arthur interjects into the confusingly awkward silence and gets mostly ignored.

If he hadn't already been regretting the fuck out of taking a job with Gino, he is now. He does not need this bullshit in his life.

* * *

"I was in Project Somnacin too." Ahmed admits, later, while Gino is out. "Only I came after you, uh, left, but I heard stories, you know. Everything they told me came with 'the Corporal said' attached to it. You were in one of the earliest groups to go under, weren't you? A lot of people were really angry that you were kicked out like that, but others said you'd orchestrated the whole thing, so no one really knew _what_ to believe."

Arthur's surprised no one mentioned that the Cobbs disappeared around the same time. Or maybe they did, and Ahmed is just sparing Arthur the gossip.

Ahmed continues. "I heard you were on the team that managed to successfully incept someone. Is that true?"

"Where'd you hear that?" Arthur asks, a little sharp.

He hasn't said anything, and he knows Cobb's not _that_ much of an idiot, and surely, for all his faults, neither is Eames, but that only leaves the other three.

Inception is too dangerous a tool to give to the world in exchange for reputation or for money. Frankly, it's too dangerous a tool to even _discover_, but what's done is done, and Arthur had been assuming the others had enough brains not to go mouthing off about it. Let the world keep treating it like a fun myth, a goal to aspire to.

Ahmed looks startled at Arthur's tone. "Oh, you know. Around. Is it meant to be hush-hush? I mean, I didn't hear any details or anything, just that you'd done it."

Gossip makes the world go round, Arthur supposes. But that doesn't mean he's going to be doing the grapevine any favours.

"Don't believe everything you hear." He replies shortly.

Ahmed shrugs. "Okay, sure. Whatever, man."

* * *

The mark, Jason Huang, is a pretty ordinary guy. He's a computer programmer for a medium sized company, and Gino says their client thinks that Huang has something in his brain that they want. Software of some sort, but what kind, and how they're going to get that sort of detailed information out of a dream and into reality with nothing by their own fallible minds, Arthur doesn't know.

"Don't you worry yourself about that." Gino brushes off when Arthur asks about it, face reddened from the cold outside. "You just worry about holding the dream together. The client wants it kept all hush-hush. You of all people should know that three people can keep a secret only if two are dead. You build me the dream, I'll do the extracting. Getting a bit nosy since Cobb went off the deep end, aren't we?"

Arthur grits his teeth and goes back to his research anyway. He does background on all marks, even if it's not been asked of him. Excuse him for being thorough, especially after Robert Fischer.

* * *

They get Huang at home while he's sleeping.

He's single, lives alone in a flat the size of Arthur's living room.

"For someone with some valuable information in his head, he sure is poor." Arthur points out. "He'd probably sell it for rather a lot less than the three of us cost."

"Yeah, but the client doesn't know that." Gino replies irritably. "Are _you_ going to tell them and lose us our pay? _I'm_ not. Newsflash: clients are idiots, and our job is to smile and nod."

Arthur shrugs and tries to rein in whatever quality of his it is that always leaves him and Gino at odds.

"You sure you have the floor plan memorized?" Gino asks, as if Arthur's spatial memory isn't near perfect and as if he hasn't asked ten times already.

"No, I've forgotten it all in the last fifteen minutes." Arthur replies sarcastically.

Gino rolls his eyes but hits the button on the PASIV without further comment.

* * *

"The safe will be in the bank." A voice says from behind.

Arthur spins around, disoriented.

"What?" He asks, feeling separated from his own voice.

He looks up at the sky.

The clouds are shifting into strange shapes.

"I _said,"_ the voice continues, "we're headed off to the bank while Ahmed keeps the mark occupied."

Arthur looks back down.

Gino is speaking.

"Are the clouds supposed to do that?" Arthur thinks he asks, frowning, but doesn't hear if he gets a reply.

He's jolted out of his musings by being grabbed by the elbow.

"Come on, the bank's this way."

Arthur's suddenly filled with the mad urge to giggle.

"You'd make a terrible school teacher." He informs Gino. "You have no patience. Or a terrible doctor. Get it? No patients?"

Gino doesn't laugh.

Arthur's being pulled through the crowd, and the people aren't trying to dodge them.

Projections, he thinks vaguely: they're projections. They're all pushy elbows and briefcases – they can sense the intruder and they don't like it.

An old lady manages to accidentally-on-purpose wallop Gino with her handbag.

Gino ducks out of her way before she might take another go, pulling Arthur with him.

"Sorry, dear." The old lady says to Arthur. "My eyes aren't what they used to be."

"No problem." Arthur thinks he might have replied on auto-pilot.

He looks back up at the sky, squinting at the cloud.

"I can't control the sky." He petulantly informs Gino.

Gino only looks back at him for a second. "That's fascinating. Really."

Then Gino is pushing Arthur into a lift and saying: "In here."

Arthur's not entirely clear on when exactly they entered a building.

He stares at the lift buttons and fails to make them light up with his brain.

"We're going to be going down into the safe room, now." Gino explains slowly to Arthur, as if Arthur is a child being tricked into going to the dentist.

Arthur never liked going to the dentist, as a child.

Gino keeps talking. "What we're extracting from Huang will be down there. Like when you incepted Fischer. You guys used a safe room too, right?"

Of course they used a safe room, Arthur thinks. Every dumbass wannabe with a PASIV knows that you build somewhere secure and closed off for the mark to put their secrets in.

"_Obviously_." Arthur rolls his eyes. It's not exactly rocket science.

"It must have been complicated." Gino continues as they enter the lift to go down to the basement floor, trying for smooth. "Inception, I mean."

How does Gino know about Fischer?

The lift doors open with a ding.

Arthur looks out into what should be the safe sleek chrome safe, but is really just the insides of a dilapidated little shed.

He sees tic tac toe grids chalked colourfully onto the cement floor, illuminated by a grubby bare light globe swinging from the ceiling, looking like it violates several electrical wiring standards.

Partially obscured but a pile of dusty furniture, there are further markings: the letters _R_, _J_ and _A_, followed each by a series of marks keeping some sort of count.

_Oh_, he thinks, and hears a woman's voice saying:

_You can put pieces of yourself into it._

"This is much more of a mess than I anticipated from you."

Gino walks into the safe-turned-shed ahead of Arthur, unfazed.

"I expected everything to be catalogued and labelled, I suppose."

Gino picks up a ratty book, but it's only a copy of _David Copperfield._

It holds secrets, alright, but not any that Gino could decipher.

Gino drops the book back down after a cursory flick-through, starts sifting through the other junk, but the broken model airplane that Rachel stamped on on purpose and the Barbie doll Arthur beheaded in retaliation are meaningless to him.

Arthur doesn't interfere, because he doesn't have to. There's nothing here that will betray his secrets.

Something catches Gino's eye, and Arthur looks curiously over to where he's reaching.

It's a wooden box, and it's unremarkable except that it's got no obvious way to open it.

Gino fiddles with the box for a moment, increasingly frustrated.

He holds it up in the air, as if intending to try to smash it, but then he catches sight of Arthur standing in the doorway to the lift.

"Here." Gino says, thrusting the box towards Arthur. "Open this."

Arthur wants to rebel, wants to answer _no_, but he has moved forward and taken the box automatically before he's realised.

He looks at the box in his hand, and it's carefully engraved with a leopard or a panther or a lioness or something. He's not that good at cats.

Some sort of large sleek feline, anyway, stalking dangerously across the wooden design.

He turns the box over and realizes that aside from the engraving, it's like a puzzle box he had as a kid.

He's about to open the box by pulling on two of the slats on the side, but then he turns it over to see a dog or wolf on the back, matching the cat's pose.

Something in his head whispers _Mr Charles._

Arthur's fuzzy on the details, can't seem to focus.

Gino is a shady piece of shit.

Arthur's an idiot.

Gino is trying to break into his head.

He takes a moment, breathes in and out, trying to force his head to _get with it_ because he should be capable of focussing, he _knows_ he should be.

He looks up at where Gino is waiting expectantly.

Gino has plastered what passes for a friendly smile onto his face, but it's shallow and empty.

Arthur looks back down at the snarling dog on the puzzle box.

He takes a deep breath and slides the box open.

The world explodes around them.

* * *

Arthur jolts awake and rolls to the side, trying not to gag on oxygen that isn't superheated and the smell of burning that isn't there.

"What the fucking shit was that?" Gino demands, ripping the IV line out from his arm.

Ahmed is awake, no IV line in sight, clearly startled. Huang is still unconscious, but he's not hooked up either.

Arthur tries to reply with: "I should be asking you the same question" only his voice sounds raspy and his throat is paper-dry and he's not sure the words come out right.

"Did you get the dose wrong?" Gino is addressing Ahmed. "Who the fuck did you order from? This clown blew us the fuck up! Reduced lucidity my ass!"

Arthur struggles to stand up, and he's shaky, but manages.

"I will fucking end you." Arthur promises Gino, voice still rough, an edge of blank rage creeping in, and reaches for his gun – because that's how their last confrontation ended, too: with bullets, and he really should have known, but his gun's not there.

"Looking for this?" Gino mocks, and he's pointing Arthur's own revolver at him.

Arthur sighs. "Only you would think it's a fantastic idea to try to extract from an extractor. Haven't you ever heard the saying?"

"And yet, I got pretty damn close." Gino goads, waving the gun at Arthur.

"Okay, everybody, just calm down." Ahmed implores from the sidelines, hands open and raised. "No need to do anything stupid."

"Something stupid – what, like getting the dosage wrong?" Gino sneers. "This mess is all your fault, he shouldn't have retained any lucidity! He shouldn't have been able to remember anything afterwards!"

"The dosage was perfect!" Ahmed defends himself. "Maybe his body's resistant to it, I don't know. It should have worked just fine."

While they're arguing and Gino's attention is elsewhere, Arthur inches closer to try to get the gun away from Gino. Gino's a crap shot, but if he lets off a round in here, he has three possible targets he might hit by chance, and Huang, at the very least, doesn't deserve to be shot in his own apartment by would-be crooks who were evidently using him as bait in order to catch the bigger fish.

Gino's attention turns back to Arthur. "Don't think you're out of it yet, buddy boy. You're still going to tell me how the hell you incepted Fisher, else I'll shoot you and then track down Cobb and any living friends or family you may still have, and take them out too."

Arthur thinks of Ariadne and James and Phillipa and even his sisters, because he's covered his tracks well – but not well enough to be a hundred precent certain that no one would ever find them.

"You're an idiot if think that there's a quick and dirty secret to it." Arthur replies. "There _is_ no secret."

The truth is that it takes a lot of work, a bit of skill, and a ton of luck. That's the secret.

"Yeah, right." Gino retorts. "Pull the other one, mate. Ahmed, do we have enough for a double dosage to try again?"

"Double could do lasting damage!" Ahmed argues, possibly finally showing evidence of some sort of ethical boundaries.

Gino is in the process of arguing with Ahmed when Arthur makes a lunge for the gun.

Ahmed swears, Gino tries to step back but stumbles, and Arthur's fingers barely graze the barrel. Gino trips over the power cable that Huang has laying across the room and Arthur follows him down, hoping to get the gun away from him before he manages to get a shot off.

They fall down in a heap and Arthur struggles to point the gun away from himself, and also away from Ahmed, because he may be a lying traitor, but he's not as bad as Gino and doesn't deserve to be shot.

"Fucking do something, you idiot!" Gino yells at Ahmed, who might also have a gun, now that Arthur comes to think of it. He blames his inability to think things through on the remainder of the drugs in his system, still making his brain sluggish. "Shoot him!"

_What the hell ever happened to honour amongst thieves?_ Arthur wonders as he's reduced to wrestling for control of the gun like a schoolchild fighting over the ball.

"You said no one would get hurt!" Ahmed is yelling at Gino, and Arthur peripherally notices him shakily pointing a gun at the two of them on the ground. "You said the guns were a precaution!"

"Yeah, a precaution against _this._" Gino grunts out and a gun goes off.

There's immediately silence after the gunshot, or maybe Arthur's just gone temporarily deaf.

Gino's face is ashen and for a crazy second Arthur thinks that Ahmed's shot Gino because Gino's a dick and deserves it, but then the pain hits him and he realises it's him who's been shot, and is bleeding from the torso.

He lets go of Gino's gun, puts his hands up to the wound in his chest and thinks: _fuck_.

* * *

**Notes: **Next chapter will be up soon. Just making final adjustments to it.

BTW I gave in and reactivated my twitter account, sob. So updates about this fic (as well as other useless blather) is available over there. Same username.


	30. Part 14-3

Gino pushes the bleeding Arthur off of himself and climbs to his feet, still pointing the gun.

Ahmed is yelling at Gino, but Arthur can't quite make out the words because his ears are ringing and his vision is whiting out.

Gino is yelling back and then Arthur's not sure what's happening anymore because it's agony to pull in a breath and he's dizzy and he can't seem to gather himself up to move from where he's sprawled on the ground, trying to hold the blood inside his body with his bare hands.

Then he's being picked up and dragged along, and he gets a good enough look to see that it's Ahmed trying to half carry, half drag him along.

Soon he's being shoved into the front seat of a car, with a rag being pressed to his chest.

"Keep pressure on that." Ahmed tells him grimly as he starts the engine.

He swims back into semi-consciousness with the car off, and Ahmed climbing out of his seat and pulling Arthur's hand onto the horn.

"Keep honking til someone comes." Ahmed orders. "I'm sorry, I can't do anything more. I'm sorry about-"

He cuts himself off.

"Call Cobb." Arthur gets himself together enough to rasp, because while Cobb doesn't deserve to have to deal with this, he at least can contact Arthur's sisters if it comes to that. And anyway, surely Arthur's earned one favour by now.

Ahmed looks caught between guilt and fear, indecisive.

"Please." Arthur manages to plead.

Ahmed finally nods, and then disappears into the night after Arthur's obediently, albeit weakly, pressed the horn on the steering wheel.

Arthur keeps up with the horn, but he's fading out of consciousness again, and his hand keeps slipping because it's covered in blood and he can feel blood pouring down his back as he leans forward, where the car seat is no longer putting pressure on the exit wound.

* * *

He drifts briefly back into consciousness when someone is jolting him onto a stretcher and barking orders.

He wonders if this is it for him as he's taken inside, bright white lights a contrast to the night outside.

He wonders Cobb will even get the message, if anyone will know, because the ID he has on him labels him as _David Z. Adler_.

He wonders if he's going to die here, in a foreign country but a mere three hundred miles from his home town.

He blacks out.

* * *

Arthur drifts slowly into awareness, and remembers voices and a steady beeping before he's actually self-aware enough to think.

Some part of him idly compares it to non-lucid dreaming, and then he remembers Gino, and the attempted extraction, and getting shot.

He opens his eyes and sees white squares made up of bigger white squares. Ceiling.

He looks around himself. Hospital. Hospital bed.

There's a glass of water on a table to his left, and he realises he's incredibly thirsty.

He's alive. Somehow, he's alive, and in hospital.

He tries weakly to raise his arm to reach over to grab the water but is cut short by the rattle of handcuffs.

_Oh_, he thinks, and _of course_, because even in Canada they treat people who are dropped off anonymously with gunshot wounds suspiciously.

He gives up on the water and allows himself to slip back into blissful unconsciousness, where he doesn't have to worry about anything.

* * *

The next time he wakes up, there's a bunch of wilted-looking flowers in the glass next to his bed. He briefly contemplates what he might do – if he were able – to the person who ruined a perfectly good glass of water.

He's hooked up to a saline drip, but his mouth is dry as stone and he really wants some water. Is that too much to ask?

He finds the call button and pushes it, but must fall into unconsciousness before a nurse gets there.

* * *

Arthur wakes up a third time and is feeling marginally more alert.

"Oh thank god, you're alive!" Says a male voice, and Arthur turns his head slowly to where it's coming from.

"Hi Cobb." He says, or tries to say. He clears his throat and tries again. "'Course I am. Beepy thing." He waves a hand at the machine he's hooked up to, like that will explain everything.

"Yeah, but you could have been in a coma or something. Or maybe the machine is broken. Or maybe you were a vegetable now or in limbo or something." Cobb argues, a hint of panic creeping into his voice and Arthur tries to remember why he ever thought Cobb might be good in a crisis.

"This isn't Hollywood." Arthur points out, failing miserably at enunciating his words clearly. "People don't just fall into comas."

Cobb moves closer suddenly and looms over Arthur.

"Don't you _ever_ pull that shit on me again!" He threatens, and he actually looks kind of scary for a moment, before Arthur remembers the time that he had baby food speckled throughout his hair because Phillipa had been going through a difficult phase and Arthur had thought it too funny to point out.

"I'll try not to get shot again." Arthur agrees obediently and gets dizzy from nodding his head.

"Do better than _try_." Cobb commands.

"I'll cancel next week's bullet testing, then." Arthur mumbles, because Cobb is not really one to talk about putting oneself – or even Arthur specifically – in danger and should really shut the hell up.

"The bullet passed clean through, but it got your left lung, and they had to reinflate your lung after it collapsed." Cobb comments, looking vaguely ill because even the thought of blood makes him nauseous.

Arthur's not sure how Cobb ever mostly succeeded as a criminal.

"You lost a lot of blood, too. Apparently it was a bit touch-and-go for a while. It's a good thing they got to you when they did, or you might have lost too much blood to come back from." With that, he goes mulishly silent.

Arthur tries to clear his throat. "I'm sorry for almost dying."

"Yeah, well. Don't think I didn't notice that you didn't call me first, either." Cobb grumbles.

"But I did." Arthur argues weakly.

"No, you – or your _friend_ – and don't think we won't have words about the sort of company you seem to be keeping these days-"

Arthur tries not to laugh at the idea of _Cobb_ criticizing Arthur's professional choices because he suspects that laughter would really, really hurt right now.

"-called Natalya, who tracked down Zoe's private civilian number, who tracked down Miles, who had_ my_ private civilian number, and somehow Eames _still_ got here before me and he was apparently in the other hemisphere!"

"Eames?" Arthur asks, because for a second he's not even sure who Cobb's talking about, the name is so unexpected in this context.

"Yeah." Cobb nods his head over to Arthur's left, where the flowers are still occupying the coveted water glass. Wilted and dying, but still identifiably yellow daffodils, and Arthur really should have been able to tell by the smell, but he'd been a little distracted, what with almost dying and everything.

"He muttered something about cancer research, I don't know. _Eames_." Cobb shrugs with a roll of his eyes, "Who the hell knows? He left pretty sharpish when I arrived, though."

"I didn't call him." Arthur feels like he needs to defend himself. "I don't know how he found me."

Cobb nods, trying for world-weary. "Dreamshare. Bunch of gossip-mongering busybodies. I'm surprised your own mother hasn't found out yet."

"Please don't joke about that." Arthur begs with a wince, because really, there are something that he never needs to suffering through, and the idea of being reunited with his mother after over a decade of firmly pretending the other doesn't exist, in a situation where he most definitely cannot run away is more horrifying than he can stand right now.

Speaking of running away:

"Can I do anything about the handcuffs?" Arthur asks with a weak yank. "Do you have anything I can pick the lock with?"

Cobb shakes his head. "There are cops waiting right outside. And I'm not sure that moving you is such a fantastic idea right now. I'm trying to talk them out of keeping you detained, but it's all uphill work. The car you were brought in was hotwired and belongs to someone who live on the same street where there were shots reported fired over there during a B&E that resulted in a drugged resident. It doesn't look good for you. What was this, Arthur? A job gone wrong? What the hell happened?"

Arthur sighs and sinks further into the bed.

"I fucked up." He admits to Cobb after a moment, closing his eyes. "Can we talk about the details later?"

Cobb must have some sort of pity left in him, or else Arthur looks as pathetic as he feels, because Cobb only sighs and gives in: "Fine. But just remember the story I've told the cops: You're a student of mine from the college, you were here to research Canadian architecture, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got caught up in the middle of a robbery. You're a perfectly decent citizen, and when you got shot, the robbers felt bad enough about it that they drove you to the hospital because they're criminals with hearts of gold. Or something."

"What innocent thing was I supposed to have been doing in that building in the middle of the night?" Arthur asks, ever the devil's advocate. "And why didn't the drop the drugged guy off too? Or call him an ambulance, at least?"

"I don't know!" Cobb replies in frustration. "Make something up! Or pretend to be unconscious when they come to question you, god, I don't care. I'm trying to get something organized, but whatever escape plan we use, it's going to have to wait until you're capable of walking without bleeding everywhere again."

Arthur feels overwhelmed.

"Can I have a nap, now?" He asks, and Cobb rolls his eyes and makes noises about going to get some lunch.

Arthur gratefully drifts back into sleep, blissfully plotting Gino's demise.

* * *

The next time he wakes, Cobb isn't there, but a nurse is charting his stats.

"Could I have some water, please?" Arthur remembers to ask him.

"Sure." The nurse nods, and pours some from a jug on the other side of the room, a jug that Cobb unthoughtfully had not thought to offer Arthur earlier.

"Can you-" Arthur starts, and wonders how to ask about the cops without being obvious, "-I'm still really groggy. My, uh, friend said there were police wanting to talk to me?"

The nurse smiles reassuringly at him. "Oh, don't worry, Mr Adler, the police are going to have to wait for the doctor's okay to talk to you, and that won't be for a while just yet. Let's just worry about getting you better, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. Thanks." Arthur mumbles to him, awkwardly. "Oh, my friend – do you know where he's gone?"

The nurse nods. "The blonde one? He's gone to have a bit of a sleep. He's been sitting around waiting for you to wake up ever since he got here. The other man hasn't been back, though. He said he couldn't stay once he confirmed you were in recovery."

"Other man?" Arthur asks and for a brief moment wonders if for some bizarre reason – maybe out of guilt – Ahmed has come to make sure that Arthur has survived his and Gino's bullshit.

"Yes, the fellow with the South African accent."

Arthur must look as bewildered as he feels because the nurse elaborates:

"Brown hair, medium height, lurid fashion choices? Left the flowers and note?"

At _fashion choices,_ Arthur suddenly remembers Cobb saying something about Eames having been there, and wonders when the hell his world had become the crazy kind of place that _Cobb_ is the one to come pull _Arthur _out of a clusterfuck of a job and not the other way round, and that Eames comes to visit and leaves flowers, wilted or no.

"-Note?" Arthur latches on to the last part of the description.

"Under the glass." The nurse nods at the flowers. "Here, I can get it for you-"

Arthur takes the note dumbly and waits till the nurse has left before gingerly unfolding it to read.

In a broad, loopy scrawl, it says:

_You were right._

_Sorry for bollocksing everything up._

_Best wishes._

_- E_

Arthur stares at the note without comprehension.

Eames is a fucking idiot, Arthur finally decides, and starts intently plotting his escape from Canada to distract him from the sheer amount of stupidity he seems to attract.


End file.
